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Are we decentralized yet?

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Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#161

Post by shadowgovt »

danabramov wrote: post #158
shadowgovt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, this is rarely an issue due to the nature of human attention. Beyond a couple dozen speakers in a conversation, it's noise. At least to my observation; I haven't pulled apart the protocol to know why: if you're in a conversation in Mastodon it's real good about keeping you in it. The threading of posts seems to route them properly to the host servers the conversing accounts live on.

And yet I could have a realtime public threaded conversation on Twitter, and am having one on Bluesky (regardless of which PDSs or AppViews other people are using), but cannot in principle have on Mastodon (unless everyone I talk to shares my instance). Does this say anything about relative ability of ATProto vs ActivityPub to meaningfully compete with centralized services? I hear your point that slower conversation…

I'm not sure where you reached the conclusion that you can't have a realtime public threaded conversation on Mastodon; I do it frequently. The way it generally works is that clients will auto-at-tag people in the conversation, which makes sure the message is routed to all in the conversation within more-or-less milliseconds.

Auto-at-tagging doesn't scale to dozens and dozens of actively-engaged speakers, but neither does human attention, so that's not a problem that needs to be solved.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#162

Post by jauntywundrkind »

Retr0id wrote: post #20
agilob wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember how freenode changed owner and pretty much everyone moved away from it in less than 1 week? It was easy and possible.

Perhaps "frictionless migration" is the real metric to optimize for, rather than decentralization at any given point in time.

I tend to agree. Having tried the Fediverse twice & each time had my server shut down, had a pretty jank sad partial migration forward path (my old replies kind of being cast into limbo), it just doesn't feel like the fediverse actually has "credible exit" at this point. Decentralized but still semi trapped.

Where-as with Bluesky/ at protocol, most folks are on Bluesky servers, yes. But there's a very strong credible exit case where you can leave the Bluesky servers & just do your own thing. And follow whomever you want to follow.

Bluesky / at proto creates a trust mechanism beyond DNS, creates an identity that can be moved around between hosts or replicated outwards in a verifiable way. I dig ActivityPub, and have been a long time http enjoyer, but it's not ideal imo for social media to need to be so coupled to such strongly DNS based client-server systems.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#163

Post by epcoa »

d4mi3n wrote: post #2

Neat! I'm not surprised at the findings here. BlueSky (for the average user) is pretty much a drop in replacement for Twitter. Despite the smaller total numbers in Mastadon, it's great to see that the ecosystem seems to be successfully avoiding centralization like we've seen in the AT-Proto ecosystem. I suspect that the cost of running AT proto servers/relays is prohibitive for smaller players compared to a Mastadon…

> Despite the smaller total numbers in Mastadon, it's great to see that the ecosystem seems to be successfully avoiding centralization

But since essentially no one is using it doesn’t suggest much avoidance of centralization. These factors are not independent. It’s pretty easy to avoid anything when your total user count is a rounding error compared to the alternatives.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#164

Post by jauntywundrkind »

HexDecOctBin wrote: post #125
danabramov wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in what way can smaller players federate with ATProto or how the structure allows federation. Each of the pieces I've described (PDS, Relay, AppView) implement the protocol specified at https://atproto.com/ . Anything that acts as an ATProto PDS can be used as an ATProto PDS, anything that acts as an ATProto Relay can be used as an ATProto Relay, and so on. I'm not sure I understand the question so pardon the tautol…

I think what they are asking is: if I run a my own BlueSky AppView, how do I integrate with the bluesky.app so that users signed in on my AppView can interact with users on the the main AppView and vice versa? This is how most of us think about federalisation.

AppViews do things like track likes, or replies.

The AppView doesn't do that only for Bluesky data. It does it for any Personal Data Stores (user accounts with all their user data) that it knows about.

When you "interact" with users elsewhere, all you do is generate new records on your own PDS. You generate a "like" entry, or a reply, on your own PDS. It's your pds, all your stuff goes there. The AppView sees that and indexes it, attaches that like or that reply in the AppView to the post you're reacting to.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#165

Post by notthemessiah »

lmm wrote: post #124
BaardFigur wrote: post #64

I thought Bluesky was federalized? How is it not?

The federal part doesn't actually work in practice. It's just a marketing gimmick.

This is factually wrong, and disproven by the fact there are now fully independent federated instances such as BlackSky and soon to be NorthSky. Furthermore, they have independent codebases which are fully compatible. Compare to ActivityPub where most instances are just running Mastodon or some close fork or risk breaking compatibility. What's the point of federation if you are stuck with a monoculture of implementations?

The main BlueSky services are still by far the most popular, which is why we see centralization on the network.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#166

Post by matt_kantor »

oncallthrow wrote: post #139
msgilligan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple ways of calculating market share (e.g. units vs dollars or for different time periods) but assuming it is measured in dollars for a quarterly time period, how would you calculate the market share based upon my sample data above?

(company sales in period - company returns for sales made in said period) / (industry sales in period)

With this formula market share for past periods can keep changing arbitrarily far into the future (depending on the companies' return policies).

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#167

Post by fakedang »

tomrod wrote: post #115
msgilligan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds depressing (i.e. ~5000 in a typical US election)

It gets really interesting when you look at the precinct and county level in the US, and similar types of views in European countries where they do real representative government.

It's ironic that national level politics mirrors the kind that the founding fathers did not ever want happening, while local politics has the kind of representation that they actually had in mind (in most places).

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#168

Post by Arrowmaster »

dom96 wrote: post #114
d4mi3n wrote: post #2

Neat! I'm not surprised at the findings here. BlueSky (for the average user) is pretty much a drop in replacement for Twitter. Despite the smaller total numbers in Mastadon, it's great to see that the ecosystem seems to be successfully avoiding centralization like we've seen in the AT-Proto ecosystem. I suspect that the cost of running AT proto servers/relays is prohibitive for smaller players compared to a Mastadon…

> BlueSky (for the average user) is pretty much a drop in replacement for Twitter. One reason Bluesky is so successful is because it doesn't shove decentralisation into the user's face like Mastodon does. The vast majority of people don't know what decentralisation is and don't care to. I think that far too much effort is put into decentralisation and not enough into good moderation on these platforms.

I don't use Mastodon because it's too decentralized.

What I mean is I own my own domains but I can't use them on Mastodon without self hosting an entire Mastodon server for one user per domain. Yes there are other implementations of the protocol but none really solve this well in a cheap to run way.

Mastodon's missing feature is identity portability. A user with their own domain should be able to easily use a larger instance to host their identities and be able to migrate them to another instance.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#169

Post by username223 »

Devasta wrote: post #126

One of the nice things about mastodon is that the total lack of centralization and the absence of the dreaded algorithm means you don't have reputation farmer accounts posting bloviating nonsense the whole time. Its really great there. Mastodon is social like a quiet pub. Twitter and Bluesky are social like a crowd at a concert.

> Mastodon is social like a quiet pub. Twitter and Bluesky are social like a crowd at a concert.

Good analogy. When Twitter started, I took one look at people shouting "I had a delicious sandwich today" and "I just took an amazing dump" and wanted no part of it. When it later turned into a "clever" contest, I wanted even less.

My quiet little Mastodon community, plus some outsiders I have chosen, is the kind of "social" I want. If someone starts behaving like an influencer, they get muted.

Re: Are we decentralized yet?

#170

Post by nine_k »

Decentralized has a problem. Its premise is that anyone can set up and run a node, cheaply.

If the decentralized network allows for some kind of targeted broadcasting, it becomes attractive for spamming (e.g: email).

If the decentralized network allows for concentration of responses on something, it becomes a potential tool for a DDoS attack (e.g.: DNS amplification).

So running a node should be somehow expensive, but the expense should be written off if the receivers of the message endorse it, by a one-time action, or automatically by subscribing. An initial credit would allow to establish an audience.

It looks like a perfect use case for a cryprocurrency of sorts %) But this means expensive coin generation, and distribution of the huge ledger across all nodes. That could be delegated to some specialized nodes, but here comes centralization again!

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