Submitted 3 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to fediverse@lemmy.world
https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
cross-posted from: lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17686207
It’s a very long post, but a lot of it is a detailed discussion of terminology in the appendix – no need to read that unless you’re into definitional struggles.
BlueSky is cosplaying decentralization rys.io/en/167.html
Blueksy’s approach to decentralization is very different from ActivityPub but it’s definitely decentralized. (Also that article’s over a year old, and some things have changed since then.). But, like I say in the article, not everybody is so welcoming!
They’re still cosplaying decentralisation. Google hosts images on a separate domain to the one where they serve documents, are they decentralised? When we see more indexers, by all means let’s consider BlueSky decentralised, but until then, they’re just offloading traffic.
There is this thread too: feddit.org/post/2656676
Kuba’s link i that thread is good, it looks like there’s currently about 370 PDS’s – Bridgy Fed got an exception from Bluesky so is the only one that currently has more than 10 uses. blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pdses I know some people who just run the open-source code for Bluesky’s PDS (which is pretty straightforward) and some run other implementations.
Getting the BTS fanbase to switch platforms is huge and can essentially get you millions of users in an instant. I wish Mastodon was in the picture though.
Not sure about Bluesky, but welcome Brazilians!
I’m squarely in the AT protocol is not the Fediverse camp. Fine if people want to enjoy Bluesky, but the Fediverse is built on top of the W3C protocol ActivityPub. AT is incompatible. Cool that there’s a bridge, but a bridge between incompatible protocols will always be a bit of a hack in my book.
You’re not the only one who sees it that way. Historically the Fediverse was always multi-protocol but some people don’t think it shojld be today. I talked about this view some in …thenexus.today/is-bluesky-part-of-todays-fediver…
“Anyhow, if Evan and Eugen and SWF and fediverse.party want to choose a definition of Fediverse where history stopped with Mastodon’s 2017 adoption of ActivityPub, erases earlier Fediverse history, and ties the Fediverse’s success to a protocol that has major issues … they can do that. “The Fediverse” means different things to different people. It’s still worth asking why they choose that definition.”
You seem to be incorrectly stating what is on Wikipedia, which leads:
The fediverse (commonly shortened to fedi)[1][2][3] is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known as federation) using a common protocol.
That last bit is absolutely key: a collection of services using a common protocol. Imagine if two different email servers didn’t both speak SMTP. Imagine if two different web services didn’t both speak HTTP. The Internet as a singular entity is only made possible because of protocol interop between all of its constituent parts.
To say “the fediverse” is comprised of multiple incompatible protocols goes against that grain entirely, and to go back to pre-ActivityPub-as-W3C-specification days as an argument that it’s fine to label multiple incompatible protocols as all being components of “the fediverse” is really a stretch.
To me, this isn’t a let’s-agree-to-disagree-issue, honestly. While the term “fediverse” is arguably colloquial and doesn’t necessarily imply any specific technical attributes, it ceases to be useful as a term if Fediverse Platform A cannot in any way communicate with Fediverse Platform B because the two platforms happen to be using 100% incompatible protocols. Aside from a third-party bridge, the AT protocol used by Bluesy is 100% incompatible with ActivityPub used by Mastodon, Threads, and others. Therefore, they cannot both be simultaneously services in the fediverse.
Maybe competition will make the Fediverse better? With or without Bluesky in the loop, we could take inspiration from their unique features and what people like about their platform.
Just a small Portuguese correction: “Bem vendos aos fediverses” should be “Bem-vindos aos fediversos!”.
Thanks very much, fixed now!
So, I find people talking about blue sky confusing, if I search for a bluesky user to follow via Mastodon, I don’t see them come up. Does that just mean my server isn’t federated with them? I’m on mastodon.online, which I think is one of the biggest instances.
It’d be cool if I could actually interact with blue sky but it’s really not clear to me how it works if I don’t have a blue sky account and am interacting externally
There isn’t direct federation between Mastodon and Bluesky; instead, Bridgy Fed connects them - fed.brid.gy/docs#fediverse-get-started
Gotcha. I understand why they chose to do it that way, but I do kinda wish it was possible to just follow someone
Thank you very much for the link/explanation!
Blaze@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Hello,
I skimmed through the article. Isn’t Bluesky one billionaire purchase away from becoming the new X (and in this case, I don’t mean Twitter)?
thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Yep. And that’s far from the only way it could work out badly. I talk about this a bit in the section on “Bluesky is a useful counterweight to Threads”
catloaf@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
No. It’s already owned by multibillionaire Jack Dorsey.
flamingos@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
This is straight up misinformation, Dorsey was on the Bluesky’s board, but left in May. As far as I’m aware, he’s never even invested in the company (but he has given money to the nostr devs).