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1. Embed this notice
   Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 00:13:36 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

   #BlueSky isn't decentralised or federated. The outage yesterday is the obvious proof. It may *look* decentralised and they definitely love to outsource traffic and storage costs by claiming that running your own PDS (Personal Data Server) is somehow something federated, but that's all smoke and mirrors. You have to gor deep on [1] to find "networking through Relays instead of server-to-server" as their current implementation choice. THEY run the relays. No one else.

   [1] https://bsky.social/about/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

   • anban, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 and Cadu Silva :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 00:18:43 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     It's well hidden, but the relay system is the centralised part.

     The posts you see come from the AppView. The AppView gets its data from the Relay. The Relay gets its stuff rom the PDSes. So you always go through the relay. No direct connection from AppView to PDS. Yes, they promise that in future you might be able to run your won relay. But right now and since its inception, Bluesky rund the only relay system you can connect to. I call that centralised.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 00:37:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @jwildeboer Silicon Valley being Silicon Valley, you say? :)

     anban repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 05:52:34 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     And as I am experimenting with local AI and run one of the #Granite models on my laptop, I asked it about the difference between Mastodon and Bluesky. Well:

     "The main difference between Mastodon and Bluesky is that Mastodon is a decentralized platform with local instances, while Bluesky is a centralized platform with a single, global network."

     :)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 05:55:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

     @oblomov @jwildeboer If you say so.

   • Embed this notice
     Oblomov (oblomov@sociale.network)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 05:55:05 JST Oblomov

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral @jwildeboer ATproto exists specifically because the existing open protocols were design against chokepoint capitalism. It's literally designed around the existence of a chokepoint (multiple ones, in fact, when you add PLC DIDs)

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 07:23:45 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     @mackuba Sure. At some point in the future all of Bluesky will be fully decentralised and reach federation levels that the ActivityStream already has ;) And that point is a moving target since years.

   • Embed this notice
     Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 (mackuba@martianbase.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 07:23:47 JST Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     in reply to

     @jwildeboer you can absolutely run your own relay and people have already done that for testing at least

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 07:37:14 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     @mackuba And, as you said, that is for testing ATM. And the other argument with the did:plc still stands. Anyway, right now Bluesky is by all practical means centralised and I am not convinced that will really change. ATProto stays a proprietary, on-open standard, owned by a non-open organisation, IMHO.

   • Embed this notice
     Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 (mackuba@martianbase.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 07:37:15 JST Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     in reply to

     @jwildeboer I won't argue that it isn't as decentralized in practice as AP right now, I'm just saying that "they promise that in future you might be able to run your own relay" is misleading, because you can do that today

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 09:04:08 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     @mackuba "The author mentions that setting up a Relay requires around 4.5 TB of disk space, and that it’s growing by around 18 GB a day. However, that was said before the most recent bump in growth. The data and processing requirements will only accelerate as more people use the service." - https://anderegg.ca/2024/11/15/maybe-bluesky-has-won

   • Embed this notice
     Sebastian :coffefied: (ssamulczyk@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 21:47:55 JST Sebastian :coffefied:

     in reply to

     @jwildeboer It's also not running on thin air, but uses VC money and that money will request a profit at some point.

     They can't make profit on a free service, so at some point they will sell it or implement some of the shitty tactics of crypto boys (CEO, Dorsey) or they will skim the data themselves and sell it to the highest bidder.

     Nothing on the Internet is free. I'm amazed people fall for it again and again... :nkoFacepalm:

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 22:30:57 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     The more I look at ATproto, the "standard" behind Bluesky, the more I see vague promises of full decentralisation and federation that "currently" are implemented in centralised ways, because "right now" they "unfortunately" have to it that way. No clear roadmap on when these centralised elements will be removed/replaced. Now if "standard" allows for such fundamental deviations, I cannot take it serious. That's just me, though.

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 22:38:18 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     I also fail to see a lot of community uptake on creating alternative implementations of ATproto. Compared to the creative chaos around ActivityPub/ActivityStreams it definitely feels more like a walled garden.

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Saturday, 16-Nov-2024 23:37:50 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     So, in conclusion and IMHO, BlueSky is a successful Twitter alternative.

     The Fediverse including Mastodon is not. The fediverse is fundamentally different due to its truly federated nature.

     And both can have their place in the market of attention.

     One ultimately is a commercial endeavour while the other is not. But for the general audience that simply is not the decisive factor. One can find that A Bad Thing, or one can shrug and move on in ones preferred direction :)

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 23:27:56 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     Now also part of a blogpost at https://jan.wildeboer.net/2024/11/My-Digital-Life-After-Twitter/

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: (jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 23:07:47 JST Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

     in reply to

     • Benjamin Sonntag-King

     @benjamin You can mirror the bluesky plc. You cannot run your own that federates with the centralised one.

   • Embed this notice
     Benjamin Sonntag-King (benjamin@piaille.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 23:07:48 JST Benjamin Sonntag-King

     in reply to

     @jwildeboer Here :
     https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q
     I was pointed to the fact that installing your own gateway AND plc directory mirror is possible.
     Who's right then?
     (I'd really like to know since some friends are pretending bsky is really fully decentralis-able)