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Bluesky adds direct messages

bsky.social

71–80 of 208 posts

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#71
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed. Can you recall any example of anyone replacing a centralized protocol with a decentralized one?

Threads sits on top of the Instagram infrastructure.

And they have added ActivityPub integration moving everything closer to decentralisation.

Given how much of a win-win for Meta it is it wouldn't surprise me to see all their networks move in that direction.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#72
post #68
post #36

The problem with BlueSky is that they built something specific for Twitter like experiences. Nostr is much better positioned to take on these large platforms IMO. You can build pretty much any social experience on it. Here's a selection of things folks have built on top of the protocol: https://www.nostrapps.com

At this point why use nostr over ActivityPub?

why "at this point"? nostr was designed after activitypub was, in order to solve problems in activitypub. No substantial evolution has happened in activitypub in the interim to invalidate these improvements.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#73
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From using Bluesky it feels like the goal is to build a social media experience that’s as decentralized as possible without sacrificing the user experience. So, they want the experience to be like Twitter for the users that don’t care about decentralization, but to be backed by something like ATProto underneath for those who care. I’d say Mastodon is more “the entire point is that it’s decentralized”. Bluesky it’s a…

When you're competing against goliath first-moved closed platforms, pragmatic eventual-decentralization makes sense. What use is first delivering today's table stakes features 5 years from now, albeit fully decentralized and open?

Yea, especially when their rational is DMs are the most asked for feature.

Build a good enough version now, and then tackle the end to end encrypted fully decentralized version. The cheap version can give them the breathing room to build the better version.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. And no, I'm not going to spend hours digging through docs.

>I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ , click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. Why do people invent fictional horror stories about a service that's at this point functionally as easy to use as any bog standard website?

You go to https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous)

Regular consumers hate this because they don't know what they're getting into, and it feels like the social media equivalent of a crypto scam where you're invited to buy a coin, any coin. It was probably intended to resemble arriving at college during rush week and pick a social/activity club to join, except you have to pick a server without any real way to browse around and understand what differentiates them.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#75
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed. Can you recall any example of anyone replacing a centralized protocol with a decentralized one?

Didn’t Bluesky ship centralized, and then later replaced the centralized protocol with the decentralized at proto?

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#76
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important though because it allows you to communicate things that don't really belong in the open while remaining under your identity on that platform and avoiding the need to link that identity with your identity on a different service.

Exactly. I often wish GitHub had a messaging capability, for these same reasons.

GitHub used to have DMs, they removed them, presumably due to spam and harassment.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed. But we all know that the more temporary the fix, the more permanent it becomes.

In my experience, temporary fixes are more likely to "stick" the better they are at addressing the problem. The fact that nobody is satisfied with this fix is a good sign.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ , click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. And that gives me access to the entire service? Or just bits and pieces of it? And how do I find other services? Asking around? Who's seeing my data if I sign up on another server? What are the anonymous operators of said server doing with my password and email…

And you know the answer to all those questions for bluesky?

Those questions aren't there, when you sign up it's just like any other service. If you want to do the decentralized thing or wonder 'why do some people have specific domain handles and the like, the information is easy to get, but you could also use it without ever knowing any of that. So very low friction for non-technical users.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#79
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed. Can you recall any example of anyone replacing a centralized protocol with a decentralized one?

Facebook messenger is not completely decentralized, but it is E2E encrypted now after years of struggle with governments and UX. It's definitely possible to move centralized systems to be more decentralized.
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