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The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

berk.es

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Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#121

Post by ForHackernews »

ilyt wrote: post #67
ForHackernews wrote: post #49

I think this article underestimates the inefficiencies in large, centralized systems where efficiency is not a goal, and incentives are weighted against it. Famously, Facebook's iOS app is over 100 MB[0] and for Android, their engineers hacked the Dalvik VM because they had so many class definitions they were overflowing a 5MB buffer just for the definitions - and then, staggeringly, they bragged about this obscenity…

From what I've seen their datancenter stuff is way more competent >I can only imagine their backend systems are a similar nightmare, that leads to nonsense like FB building its own data centers to run their photos-and-ads crud app. Uh, of course they are running their own datacenters, they are one of biggest sites on net, outsourcing infrastructure to cloud makes no goddamn sense to them

Wikipedia is one of the largest sites on the internet, and (to my knowledge) they are not running their own data centers.

> outsourcing infrastructure to cloud

Paying for AWS or building a data center are not the only two options. There are many co-location providers, there are dedicated firms with the expertise to run a data center for you...

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#122

Post by phpisthebest »

uneekname wrote: post #4

What has happened with Mastodon recently feels like a great thing for the fediverse. Many of these platforms are still working out their implementation kinks, but they aren't babies anymore. Just when I thought ActivityPub might never catch on, a significant number of people have decided to give it a chance. Makes me want to implement some ActivityPub features on my own site, so I can get in on the fun!

This could also be Mastodon / ActivityPub's version of Eternal September

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#123

Post by phpisthebest »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62
bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i think that's what most people want. One of the reasons centralization won out for email is dealing with spam can be absolutely exhausting, so gmail started to look really attractive for the average user.

This is why I think a big player needs to get involved. As soon as Google hosts a Mastodon instance, that will ease the entry for a lot of people.

Or Twitter joins the Fediverse.....

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#124

Post by phpisthebest »

mftrhu wrote: post #116
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I think a big player needs to get involved. As soon as Google hosts a Mastodon instance, that will ease the entry for a lot of people.

An instance set up by Google would be likely de-federated on the next day, and it would be a good thing.

People always complain that MS does the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish model but they never remember or refuse to acknowledge that a lot of these other big tech companies have and continue to do that the same thing

XMPP is but one of many protocols that were adopted by Big Tech, then once market share was achieved they took their users and walked away from the open internet

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#125

Post by cinntaile »

xigoi wrote: post #105
cinntaile wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with blockchains?

That the energy consumption of Mastodon is negligible in comparison.

I took the car to the store, it's not great but it's not as wasteful as proof-of-work blockchains.

What is the point of making irrelevant comparisons is what I'm asking.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#126

Post by irusensei »

CM30 wrote: post #120
irusensei wrote: post #35

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places. Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be pos…

Let’s say you are a journalist or wathever today profession that depends on reaching people. After the twitter fallout you went to this new journalist centric instance and managed to recover a good following. Months later and you had a bad intercalating with the server admin which ended up not being a level headed person as you previously thought. He deletes your account… not even a chance to use the migration tools to redirect profile.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#127

Post by its-summertime »

thought experiment:

Write a twitter clone for a moderately sized community, lets say 10k with probably, 1-5% of community active at any given time. hell, even throw in activitypub if you want.

vs.

Write twitter.

I know which I'd rather do! Only one of the two is easier than rocket science! (haha)

Its inefficient because it hasn't needed to be efficient, but that will change in the future or someone else'll take over. Cascade issues are fixable. the end result is proven achievable (see telcos and the SMS systems that cover the world, global scale federated messaging exists and works!)

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#128

Post by ZeroGravitas »

irusensei wrote: post #35

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

Apparently there is some work being done to give the non-admins even more power/control over their own content, which currently needs GPG shenanigans.

I learned this from this talk:

A New HOPE (2022): ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnciCz83t70

Which notably is a recent talk (July) but was given before the recent influx.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#129

Post by amadeuspagel »

CM30 wrote: post #120
irusensei wrote: post #35

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places. Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be pos…

> If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place.

I don't direct people to my HN profile. I don't rely on that for identity. I don't try to build an audience on HN.

> If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter.

These are ad-funded businesses, they have a financial incentive not to ban everyone they dislike. They also have a track record.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#130

Post by amadeuspagel »

irusensei wrote: post #55
HollowEyes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am partially surprised that the reading portal is the same as the authoring one. It would feel better if we had one great feed reader, and an authoring pumping station. The blurred lines makes it more difficult to comprehend as much. Who moderates offshore content?

> Who moderates offshore content Whoever is in the pilot seat and that’s beautiful. Although if things start to get a bit too edgy we might see entire servers blacklisted from store apps. Also server-wide block done by administrators. If I’m not mistaken the largest mastodon instance is Pawoo.net and that’s basically a japanese board for posting controversial hentai artwork. Pawoo.net is blacklisted from most popular…

I'd be surprised to learn that it's blacklisted from any feed readers. That illustrates the usefulness of separating reader app and hosting.
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