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Open Social

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Re: Open Social

#371

Post by tomgag »

dark_mode wrote: post #369
tomgag wrote: post #363

Personal opinion: Bluesky is "fedi-washing". Better Mastodon or Nostr. https://gagliardoni.net/#20250818_battle_of_socials

I like the skepticism against Bluesky, and I agree that where VC money is involved things are mostly sketchy. However, this post was about the at protocol, which seems like you just hand-waved in one sentence: > The AT Protocol used by Bluesky has some interesting features, although to be honest I don't know how many of these are just impossible to achieve on ActivityPub or are just WIP lagging behind due to funding…

> I don't think the debate between them is super useful because their architectures are very different.

Sure, that's true, but I, personally, care mostly about one question: Who holds the keys to the kingdom? In this respect, I think the AT Protocol fails spectacularly, mainly due to the lack of a credible strategy to implement really self-custodian identities.

> You also mentioned an issue with the bluesky relay, but others already exist so it's not techincally tied to Bluesky. Heck, I think the fact multiple can exist at the same, while degrades the social aspect, still makes it decentralized.

Yes, but this is also true for Nostr, Diaspora, Mastodon, etc. The difference being, last time I checked (and of course things might have changed in the meantime) with AT Protocol it was only possible to self-host part of the infrastructure (and hosting the relay is insanely demanding).

> As for the identity management issue, they announced just last week that it's getting branched to an independent entity: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/plc-directory-org

This is another example of gaslighting from Bluesky that just makes me angry. How in the holiest of Hells does an "Identity directory controlled by a Swiss Association" make the whole thing better?

Sorry, not buying it. I don't have a horse in the race, but won't fall for the marketing.

Re: Open Social

#372

Post by verdverm »

Timwi wrote: post #210
verdverm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://discord.atprotocol.dev Lots of people there to direct you to specific resources

If you think that there are specific resources, you can just post them here. The fact that you didn't, and instead linked to a corporate walled garden, is very suspicious.

I posted links in another comment once I was back at a computer

Re: Open Social

#373

Post by hollowonepl »

danabramov wrote: post #305
lowkeyokay wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author surely knows about competing protocols but prefers at. It would be just as easy to argue the author is biased if a comparison was made. Maybe more informative though.

I thought about covering others at first but it ended up distracting from the point I wanted to make. I tried to make a strong case for this particular vision in this article. I could write something separate as a comparison, or maybe let other voices speak for their thing. In short, I don’t think ActivityPub solves any of the stated problems (ability to walk away without cooperation; forking products; giving new lif…

I don't believe anybody else can do it with good start you've made. I think above is nice headline for some more complete assessment as a follow-up article. indeed!

Re: Open Social

#374

Post by tneely »

I've always thought it would be interesting to apply this sort of approach to health data. I own my data and control where it's stored and how it's accessed. And hospitals anywhere can interact with my data as needed while labs, doctors notes, etc. all live with the hospitals.

Re: Open Social

#375

Post by zumu »

I've been on and off thinking about this problem for years. Very excited to see an ecosystem popping up.

But I wonder, why JSON if the web is already built on HTML documents? Is it possible to just store our data in a web of authenticated html documents and have the protocol be built on that? Are there other open standards we can leverage to reduce the amount of new infra / protocols? I wonder if there's a less complex "good enough" mvp version.

Re: Open Social

#376

Post by poolnoodle »

Eisenstein wrote: post #213
poolnoodle wrote: post #177

Every day I am more convinced that we don't need these global conversation platforms at all.

I know this sounds pithy, but why are you here then? Or do you think that only other people shouldn't have them?

I should have been more precise. We don't need microblogging.

Re: Open Social

#377

Post by fogzen »

AT seems cool — but it’s not built on the web. That’s a dealbreaker for me.

I can’t link to a Bluesky post. I can’t use Bluesky from the browser. It’s a silo’d network.

The indie web has the right idea: Use the web, build ontop of blogs, degrade gracefully. We could have central aggregators just like Bluesky crawling the web with microformats.

The polished experience with Bluesky has little to do with the tech and everything to do with financing and talent. Give me millions of dollars in grants and I’m sure I can build a polished UX too.

Re: Open Social

#378

Post by dangus »

krapp wrote: post #244
dangus wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other issue here is that there's a serious question of why bother "upgrading" your social media from closed to open when we've all figured out that it's bad for you, worsens your mood, and generally wastes your time? If I'm going to delete my Facebook/Instagram account then why am I trying to pick up a new drug to replace it?

Social media is just a paradigm for multimedia communication and networking over the internet. It isn't inherently good or bad, any more than telephones, television, radio or the internet itself. I think many people find social media useful. If you aren't one of those people, fair enough. But not everyone is angry and addicted all the time.

It is quite debatable whether it is inherently good or bad.

There is not a whole lot of scientific evidence for it being good from what I understand.

I would also argue that if you broaden the definition of social media too far you’re not really talking about social media anymore. Calling your friends on Signal isn’t “social media.”

Re: Open Social

#379

Post by dangus »

krapp wrote: post #345
bluebarbet wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a significant subset of users - younger people and children - a consensus is forming among specialists that social media is indeed inherently bad.

They said the same thing about video games, and the internet as a whole, and cellphones, and television, and magazines. I'm not going to claim that social media can't have negative consequences for young people, lots of things do. But the hyperbole behind the discourse makes it obvious there is also a moral panic at work. In every case, technology is blamed for a failure of society's responsibility to educate and rai…

IIRC peer reviewed scientific study was not saying that about video games, it was other less thoroughly researched sources and/or propaganda groups.

Re: Open Social

#380

Post by BrenBarn »

styanax wrote: post #297
xigoi wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should pick a platform that is federated, where you have ownership and autonomy over your identity and your audience. Social media should not be own-able by a single group or person. Social media is serious business. It ties directly to human rights and business outcomes. It shouldn't be in anyone else's control but yours. I agree, but why not also apply the same logic to the other two communication platforms yo…

> I agree, but why not also apply the same logic to the other two communication platforms you are using (Discord and GitHub)? Aside, this infuriates me - "here's our open source project/website, join our Discord!" (even Lemmy instances). sigh

There aren't many realistic alternatives.
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