Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

Fair enough, the only way I see feasible would be to use the Nostr protocol in a "walled garden"-type app/ecosystem, to the point where few users would know they're using Nostr (which would sacrifice most of the benefits of the protocol).

The global feed for me has always been generally as you say it is, with just as much unfettered content coming from Nostr-native pubkeys as from ones bridged from AT/AP/RSS etc. I thought that was just a consequence of me connecting to 30+ relays of varying sizes at all times, as nowadays I would suspect that the norm is to be subscribed to only a select few of the biggest relays.

I really do hope WoT gains traction, as for users it's a great middle ground between follows (easy filtering of feed, discoverability very difficult) and the global feed (easy discoverability, feed filtering very difficult).

Very well said. This is the approach we're taking with peergos, paid accounts unless you self host. I wrote some of our thoughts on this here:

https://peergos.org/posts/the-social-dilemma

> 1. To start, if decentralization does not "solve the problem" then what do all AP platforms bring to the table? There was already a decentralized facebook before mastodon - it used to be called a "web site". You could get a feed with just what you wanted by subscribing to rss feeds, which were also decentralized

Personal websites still soundly lost to the Yahoo, MSN and AOL home pages (remember those?) Pareto distributions are everywhere, even with systems whose decentralized nature is as unquestionable as websites - I'm probably sounding like a broken record now, but it's clear as day to me.

You mention of old-school websites crystalized some inchoate thoughts I had. The fediverse is the spiritual successor to Web 2.0 / the blogoshpere in the age of social media and mobile apps. Instead of RSS feeds, loosey goosey comment and pingback implementations, everything is in a fairly well-defined spec that allows the conversations to be viewed on one web application or app by simply scrolling. What AP brings to the table are:

A. the ability to own the platform as an individual, or as a collective of like-minded people. There's a qualitative difference between r/math and Mathstodon, even both are on on the surface self-moderated Math communities. Even if such communities are blocked and defederated from the rest of the world, I think there's incalculable value in the community self-reliance as an end to itself without being mediated by a profit-seeking entity. I acknowledge this is an ideological proclivity, YMMV.

B. gives more editorial power to users over what they see (though this is woefully underspecified, but apps can and do fill the gap)

C. Better aggregation and discovery than websites. Closed and centralized social platforms are inherently great at this, but RSS feeds, not so much. If you find a website commenter particular insightful, you can't "subscribe to their newsletter" - you can with AP.

2. why not bring something new to the table? eg anonymity of nosr.

It's good to have many approaches tried out and available to people. I want the balance of power to be shifted more towards people - protocols are just implementation details. Id people choose to fo with the megacorp-hosted implementation of an interoperable standard (like Threads is claiming to aspire to), so be it. The existence of AP does not preclude nostr or AT, or Wordpress or Ghost

3.If "decentralization is not the solution", how come other protocols - eg mentioned above - claim (convincingly imho) to offer an actual improvement if not solution

I suppose everyone has well-reasoned and well-intended bases for their opinions, even when we disagree. I don't believe any protocol can counteract economies of scale without detrimental effects to smaller players, which is why I don't they can solve it - it'd be fantastic if they pull if off - I don't think they will - but I'm glad someone is trying. I wish nothing but the best to each project

> 4. You claim "decentralization is not the solution" then define some ad hoc line in the sand regarding what is "decentralized" and then make some bold claims based on that. Decentralized could mean many things: could be like ssh keys, could be like gpg keys with directories and web of trust, could be like dns or certificate authorities. Could be like email. Like torrents or like i2p, or kad

I don't know what kad is, but most of the things you list on your spectrum of decentralization had dominant players, whether it's DNS, gpg keys, CAs, or torrent trackers. I'm not going to split hairs on whether the dominance of keybase meant gpg is not really decentralized.

What I'm saying is the pie is getting bigger, inequality can increase too and that you probably are still better off. If Youtube doubles in size next year, and Mr Beast increases his share of that from let's say 1% to 2%, the remaining 98% is still bigger than the 99% that was shared amongst everyone else last year.

You may look at that and say well that's not fair, most of the benefits are going to Mr Beast - and they are, Mr Beast would have done very well in that scenario. But you're still better off than before. Are you better off relative to Mr Beast? No. But Youtube doesn't owe you that, that's not a reasonable benchmark. If it gets to the point that you're getting worse off, then maybe move to somewhere else, but expecting these places to be good for you in perpetuity is a mistake, and refusing to engage because you fear they won't be good for you in perpetuity is also a mistake. The total benefit of us all engaging makes the pie much bigger, and you almost certainly will get a bigger share of that than by refusing to partake in the pie at all.

It's more than big enough for lots of us. It doesn't need to be big enough for everyone.