This is a pretty great, long form post about the structure of Bluesky, and how it’s largely kinda pretending to be decentralized at the moment. I’m not trying to make a dig at it. I’ve enjoyed the platform myself for a while, but it’s good to learn more about how it actually works.
This article was shared on Mastodon via its author here.
It’s not.
I’m not even sure it can, unless they want to pay server operators. Who would do that for free for a for-profit company? And if they’re ultimately supported by the top, they’re still centralized.
Not that it’s super expensive to run a server, but it ain’t free; at least in a place like the Fediverse, every transaction is voluntary all the way down to the financial support, because any part may choose to participate or leave as they see fit.
I don’t see how BlueSky can replicate that and still chase profit.
I thought I read something that said one of the servers or services or something was already like 4.8 terabytes and growing by the day.
but even if you wanted to run that, you cant because they wont release the software or interact with foreign relays.
they dont even let you choose to grab the 4.8tb which is <10% of my home storage
It’s in the article.
I’m staying on Lemmy and off Bluesky.
I seek and spread knowledge from/to helpful lemmings and not interested in another Twitter wannabe gossip app, hopping on the “decentralized” train to grain traction.
This gossip app is meant for artists and other internet celebrities that think they are cool making their opinions to be fact. Extreme left is insufferable right now as a moderate. They have tripled down in all the worst ways which makes it annoying and frustrating to ignore.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things. Since I jumped ship to lemmy I feel even less inclined to bother with anything else. However reddit was way better for certain stuff like artists or creators.
I take it you tried out bsky and had a bad experience…
Yes Ive been on bsky since early this year and really enjoyed it until everyone on the platform started kicking up dust over the election completely overreacting and spazzing out spewing the most idiotic things about identity politics, third party voters, trump being hitler, fascists it just lost all meaning. I used to be democrat and now consider myself moderate at this point and I just cant stomach following those kind of people anymore.
Not to mention childish adding labels on everyone and blocklists to decent people just completely power tripping cancel culture x10. Then all of a sudden I feel like its twitter all over again and I become incredibly annoyed at myself thinking it would ever change. Microblogging is so fucking stupid.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things.
😂
I was on there for 10 years and it has been nothing but a massive circlejerk for the majority of the subs with obvious bots and astrosurfing.
I’m probably not going to read the article. But there’s currently just one bluesky instance, so it’s 100% centralized, not decentralized at all.
Jack was talking about the “protocol” at one point… I don’t think that matters at all right now. It’s just another social media site!
Apparently the instances are connected to a central hub.
Instances plural? Are there other instances?
I assume so. There’s a download and setup instructions here.
Presently? Hardly at all. It is interesting that a private Corp is even seriously playing with building a decentralized platform, I guess.
The files are out there to host your own server but from the short look I took it’s pretty involved. Most people with the knowledge and interest to host their own twitter-like server have probably already started a mastodon instance.
It reminds me of what Google tried to do initially with Google+. They copied Diaspora’s concept of aspects, calling them “circles”. Over time, though, using the circles became more and more janky until they removed them entirely. Then, of course, Google+ got shuttered completely over security issues.
Likewise, “federation” and “decentralization” are the new hotness in social networks, so here’s a big corporation looking to cash in on that. Of course, real decentralization would take too much power away from the corporation, so they have to half-ass it somehow.
“federation” and “decentralization” are the new hotness in social networks,
Are they? I think it only seems like that from inside the fediverse. As far as blue sky goes I think the new hotness is just getting the hell away from anything to do with elon
That’s a really interesting read (and worth much more attention than the pithy one-liners of people who just want to read the title).
On reflection, I think my take away is that Bluesky will always by necessity of its design be hosted and controlled by a single centralised company. But what their architectural model does allow is the possibility of a wholesale migration from one centralised provider to another. That is, it would be possible for a suitably resourced and motivated company to host its own mirror Relay and other components and have essentially a fully functional Bluesky clone. In the event that Bluesky ever “does a Twitter” and go into terminal decline, in theory this might mean that a successor/competitor could emerge and take on the network without loss of existing content.
I’m not sure that’ll ever actually happen, but it’s an interesting thought.
Interesting point, and shows that most likely, any instance of Bkuesky will eventually go Twitter
Not quite. Elon is a rather singular figure.
I saw a comment the other day about this saying you’d need like over 4terrabytes of storage to run a BlueSky instance of your own, and that it’s growing every day. That’s fucking insane.
That’s addressed in the blog post. She was saying it was currently 5TB and growing. So anyone wanting to set up a server would need to pay for that space, and that’s not cheap.
It’s also not, like, unattainable
But it’s definitely well beyond what any hobbyist is going to set up in a whim
Meh, homelab storage and FTTH are reasonably cheap. Or rented iron like Hetzner.
I thought it takes that much storage to run a relay, not an instance. (Which Bluesky calls a “Personal Data Store.”)
Maybe this is just my ignorance showing, but this seems like a really archaic way to design something like this in 2024. Dump all the data into a central repository and then have clients pull from that?
Bluesky (well, atproto, bluesky is the twitter clone running on atproto as a demo app) doesn’t actually have instances in the mastodon sense, it’s a more modular design for better scaling (because it was designed from the start to replace twitter)
Here’s a good article with illustrations https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers
It’s not exactly decentralized if you use the official relay only, just distributed which is a different concept entirely
No decentralization atm.
What’s funny is that the only shit people get from DeCeNtRaLiZaTioN is inconvenience and dying engagement.
Incorrect. That’s the only thing people notice. The benefit is not having one central authority in control. If Bluesky decides to, for some reason, not allow third-party apps or something, there’s no way to prevent it. If Lemmy.world, for example, does this then they don’t have the authority to enforce it.
The benefit of federation is in removing hierarchy that can harm the platform without the consent of its users. It’s invisible because it’s only preventing something. This does not mean it isn’t beneficial though.
“Removing hierarchy”. Lol what? The instance owner is boss of the instance. Are you suggesting it’s different just because here it is a totally reliable* leftist* dude in the Internet who decides what to do instead of… A random guy who owns a company?
What happens when the money runs out and you face the reality that running a platform is a business, not a hobby? As has been happening with many instances lately.
The instance owner owns the instance, but it’s limited to that. That is the minimum level possible. There has to be a server somewhere. On Lemmy you can always leave for another instance or start your own. On Reddit your options are to do what the company wants or leave the entire site. You can’t just log into a different server.
Im more interested hows the privacy policy? Im too lazy to read it atm
More than Twitter. Less than Mastodon. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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“People have been saying”
I love that absolutely meaningless statement.
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if there is, I haven’t seen any. ive been using it quite a bit. its probably like most social media where if you don’t engage with that kind of content, it doesn’t show it to you.
Thats not really what happens, unless you’re so toxic that old-twitter would actually ban you.
Bsky has a “nuclear block”, that essentially removes you and the target from even existing on the version of the site each other see. If you’re ok with just talking to folk who are on your side of a “no, shutup” line, like “trans women are women” or “trans is a mental disorder” you’ll be fine.
The issue is that a bunch of folk who abscribe to the second apparently just want to troll the first, so they get blocked by their targets, have no fun, and then complain to reporters still on twitter.
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“They” don’t have that. Most labellers are user made and people can subscribe to them or not.
The implementation details matter less than how it affects the culture.
I do think it matters a lot whether it’s a thing the app offers natively to everybody or something certain users have implemented on their own and that other users can choose to use or not. You don’t blame the contents of a mod on the game itself, do you?
If there’s a widely used mod that makes the game worse, that’s a good reason to not play the game. It doesn’t matter who made the mod. Using the mod (e.g. an aim bot in a shooter game) is toxic user behavior and if the game ops tolerate it, they deserve blame too.
Is it “widely used”? An aim bot directly affects everybody else, actively making the game worse. This only affects a small number of people who choose to opt-in and trust the labeller’s opinion. I can’t even find that labeller and I learnt about it from you. And again, it’s not BSky that offers the labeller - that IS an important distinction.
The way some moderation lists (ban/labeling) work is algorithmic.
You can actually host one of these services yourself!
I tried to look this up but I couldn’t find much. The “worst” I found was this:
Some users have expressed concerns about the platform’s moderation practices, suggesting that the community’s emphasis on inclusivity and respect may lead to over-sensitivity, where even minor disagreements or differing opinions are met with significant backlash. This environment can create a perception of excessive policing of content, potentially discouraging open dialogue.
Where are you reading that people are saying that it’s worse than twitter? Is it right wing people that are saying that because they put emphasis on inclusivity and respect?
That’s exactly what it is. The trolls and bot runners and MAGA chuds are pissed that we can completely prevent them from interacting with us there. And with curated blocklists it doesn’t even require work for the average user.
They can come to bsky but they’ll just be screaming at each other while the rest of us talk about cool stuff.
It’s one of the best features of bsky!
Lists, feeds, starter packs, and moderation tools that work, have all led to a very vibrant and engaging social media experience!
The user base isn’t afraid of quickly dealing with antisocial behavior.
You can tell which way your media outlets position themselves by how they report on this aspect of bsky. Egalitarians will cast it in a positive light, while Elitists will cast it in a negative light.
IMO it is THE killer feature, and it’s why Bluesky is going to win this round of the internet wars.
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If that makes bluesky bad, lemmy should get an award for how terrible it is
A bit of a counterpoint: https://whtwnd.com/alexia.bsky.cyrneko.eu/3l727v7zlis2i
Oh nice. I’ll take some time to read that today.
