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There are no instances in ATProto

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Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#21

Post by RobotToaster »

muglug wrote: post #12

As far as I can tell, Relays[1] are the glue that makes ATProto work performantly. I think they're supposed to be content-agnostic — they just shuttle data through, reducing the number of services each AppView needs to be aware of. As the blog mentions, the big improvement vs Mastodon is that Relays, AppViews and PDSes are separate services with their own distinct scaling demands. It's a rather beautiful solution to…

They do remove content directly from relays. They claim they only remove content that is illegal to host, but I don't know how true that is, and there is always the risk it could change in the future.

https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture#...

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#22

Post by chokolad »

AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #4

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

> Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

I wonder why you are vagueposting here instead of stating your position firmly. Maybe because you are afraid to be shown wrong, but who knows ?

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#23

Post by danabramov »

hooverd wrote: post #13
AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #4

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

Mostly because having a big centralized firehose relay is less decentralized than people want to admit.

That's not true.

It's not centralized in any way that matters. The Relay Bluesky uses is open source, you can run your own for $30/month if you really insist on doing that, it's trivial to pool between multiple apps if you want to lower costs, and there are already a few independent ones you can just use directly now, for example:

- https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Fatproto.afri...

- https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Feurope.fireh...

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#24

Post by chokolad »

hooverd wrote: post #13
AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #4

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

Mostly because having a big centralized firehose relay is less decentralized than people want to admit.

Why is that a problem if you can host relay for $50 per month as TFA mentions?

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#25

Post by chokolad »

RobotToaster wrote: post #21
muglug wrote: post #12

As far as I can tell, Relays[1] are the glue that makes ATProto work performantly. I think they're supposed to be content-agnostic — they just shuttle data through, reducing the number of services each AppView needs to be aware of. As the blog mentions, the big improvement vs Mastodon is that Relays, AppViews and PDSes are separate services with their own distinct scaling demands. It's a rather beautiful solution to…

They do remove content directly from relays. They claim they only remove content that is illegal to host, but I don't know how true that is, and there is always the risk it could change in the future. https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture#...

If that becomes a massive problem - host a relay with different moderation policy.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#27

Post by danabramov »

muglug wrote: post #12

As far as I can tell, Relays[1] are the glue that makes ATProto work performantly. I think they're supposed to be content-agnostic — they just shuttle data through, reducing the number of services each AppView needs to be aware of. As the blog mentions, the big improvement vs Mastodon is that Relays, AppViews and PDSes are separate services with their own distinct scaling demands. It's a rather beautiful solution to…

Yeah, Relays are one way to do that. I've mostly skipped them because they're an invisible optimization and there are other strategies. E.g. many smaller apps today rely on Constellation (https://constellation.microcosm.blue/) instead of building their own database index, so they don't use a Relay at all.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#28

Post by jrm4 »

Yes, and this is exactly why ATProto is worse and more dangerous. Instances are safer. precisely because they are more genuinely decentralized.

The ability to forever tie your stuff to a person, strongly, is exactly what the surveillance state would want.

Mastodon's model gives you plausible deniability. It's safer.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#29

Post by jazzyjackson »

RobotToaster wrote: post #21
muglug wrote: post #12

As far as I can tell, Relays[1] are the glue that makes ATProto work performantly. I think they're supposed to be content-agnostic — they just shuttle data through, reducing the number of services each AppView needs to be aware of. As the blog mentions, the big improvement vs Mastodon is that Relays, AppViews and PDSes are separate services with their own distinct scaling demands. It's a rather beautiful solution to…

They do remove content directly from relays. They claim they only remove content that is illegal to host, but I don't know how true that is, and there is always the risk it could change in the future. https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture#...

I want the bsky org to be able to choose what content they host (and I think the internet would be a better place without section 230 protections allowing hosts to ignore the content they distribute); the promise as I understood it was that relays could be hot pluggable. If someone stopped carrying content (maybe it was illegal in /their/ region and not yours) you could failover to another relay.

However there is very little incentive to mirror any of the firehouse if someone else is doing it for free.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#30

Post by RobotToaster »

iameli wrote: post #20
RobotToaster wrote: post #18

There's basically only one instance. There's only one PLC directory. There's very few full relays (edit: appviews), none that I'm aware of that don't mirror bluesky censorship/moderation decisions.

There are many relays, here's a list of 13 but it's not comprehensive: https://tangled.org/firehose.club/community-firehose-list/bl... Bluesky's moderation actions are generally implemented as moderation labels which take effect at the AppView level. Sometimes they'll take down someone's PDS or censor from their relays, but I don't believe third-party relays are aware of those relay takedowns at all.

You're right, I was probably confusing appviews with relays.
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