Jack Dorsey skipped ActivityPub, built AtProto, lost Twitter, funded Bluesky, watched it become a company with VCs and a board, said it was "repeating all the mistakes," left, and now funds Nostr.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber well, that's the thing: the network topology does not match that.
Sure, I could run a relay and an appview and a PDS if I really wanted to, but I don't *need* to.
That's where folks are stumbling because they think they *need* to run the entire network topology or stack, which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for individuals to do.
Instead we pool resources and work together. It's kinda like how there's been the ideas in the ActivityPub ecosystem for ages for a shared media CDN and a shared link resolver for link previews, and even shared moderation infrastructure.
Running everything gets complicated and expensive as the network grows, whether that's AT Protocol or ActivityPub.
@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Well, understand there may be advantages to separating components. However, the entire marketing premise of network 'decentralization' is grounded in the idea of independence of the network nodes. If this is no longer the key design objective, then we really aren't talking about a decentralized network. It sounds fine to say elements share burden and work together, but what happens when a dependent element decides not to cooperate? Isn't this the whole point?
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@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Well, understand there may be advantages to separating components. However, the entire marketing premise of network 'decentralization' is grounded in the idea of independence of the network nodes. If this is no longer the key design objective, then we really aren't talking about a decentralized network. It sounds fine to say elements share burden and work together, but what happens when a dependent element decides not to cooperate? Isn't this the whole point?
@mastodonmigration @baralheia decentralized *where* and *how*
Is ActivityPub really decentralized when everyone builds for compatibility with Mastodon (apart from Lemmy) or is it only decentralized in operations? Where mastodon.social accounts for a significant portion of the network? What about Pixelfed? How much decentralization there? Loops? I think there's only really one maybe two loops servers of any size?
Decentralization doesn't mean "run absolutely everything myself", I mean, sure, you *could* but that's expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Moderation? Most servers just import some blocklist snapshot at a given point in time.
Thing is, decentralization isn't the goal, the goal is better social apps.
Decentralization focuses on technology, not people. It's the "how" not the "why" and "for who"
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia decentralized *where* and *how*
Is ActivityPub really decentralized when everyone builds for compatibility with Mastodon (apart from Lemmy) or is it only decentralized in operations? Where mastodon.social accounts for a significant portion of the network? What about Pixelfed? How much decentralization there? Loops? I think there's only really one maybe two loops servers of any size?
Decentralization doesn't mean "run absolutely everything myself", I mean, sure, you *could* but that's expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Moderation? Most servers just import some blocklist snapshot at a given point in time.
Thing is, decentralization isn't the goal, the goal is better social apps.
Decentralization focuses on technology, not people. It's the "how" not the "why" and "for who"
@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia Is it really decentralized if, for most people, their identity (i.e., handle) is tied to a domain that they don't control (because they don't want to operate social apps, they just want to use them), and migrating from one provider to another looses all their data apart from their follow graph (which still looses some data)
(sure, LOLA might help with this, maybe, but it's just a technical demo right now)
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
Seems like we are losing focus here. If the model is one principly centralized platform where satellites offload and contribute resources many interesting things are possible, and it may be a more fun and interesting development environment, but it is still dependent on the centralized platform.
Real decentralization is hard, but the advantage is true node independence. If real decentralization is not the operative model, then it should not be the marketing slogan.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia Is it really decentralized if, for most people, their identity (i.e., handle) is tied to a domain that they don't control (because they don't want to operate social apps, they just want to use them), and migrating from one provider to another looses all their data apart from their follow graph (which still looses some data)
(sure, LOLA might help with this, maybe, but it's just a technical demo right now)
Short answer is yes. Decentralization has nothing to do with keeping some universal identifier or address. In fact, keeping a universal handle is kind of a centralized concept since some central authority must adjudicate the name.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber no, I mean, processing 2.4 billion posts, 3.4 billion follows, and 13.6 billion likes is a metric shittone of data to process. Serving up feeds to 42 million users (10-15 million monthly active) requires a lot of processing.
Stats from: https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
It's not even talking about communication at a network layer between PDSes, Relays, and AppViews. That's a different matter, which is where Christine was mostly talking, iirc.
@thisismissem I'm sorry, where is the MAU from? I don't see it on the page you linked to.
https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth reports 5.36M (excluding users who don't interact with posts).
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia Is it really decentralized if, for most people, their identity (i.e., handle) is tied to a domain that they don't control (because they don't want to operate social apps, they just want to use them), and migrating from one provider to another looses all their data apart from their follow graph (which still looses some data)
(sure, LOLA might help with this, maybe, but it's just a technical demo right now)
Want to thank you again for having this discussion. Fully recognize that what AT Proto folks prioritize in network architecture are not the same capabilities that ActivityPub boosters prioritize, and that it is frustrating to have this conversation here. Feel like we did make progress in clarifying and kind of agreeing about some of the respective characteristics of each protocol.
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Seems like we are losing focus here. If the model is one principly centralized platform where satellites offload and contribute resources many interesting things are possible, and it may be a more fun and interesting development environment, but it is still dependent on the centralized platform.
Real decentralization is hard, but the advantage is true node independence. If real decentralization is not the operative model, then it should not be the marketing slogan.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia AT Protocol is decentralised in that you can run the parts yourself, if you *really* want to, but you don't *need* to.
Needing to run everything yourself has a massive cost associated with it, and relies on a tonne of volunteer labour to provide infrastructure, moderation, etc.
Just because we *choose* to share resources, does not make it centralised. We can also *choose* to not share resources, which is what Blacksky has done for microblogging on AT Protocol. They have features Bluesky doesn't have. They run completely independently at all levels of infrastructure*.
There is an * here, because they are currently choosing to consume the Bluesky Moderation Service's data alongside with their own moderation service, because that provides significant value to them at this time (I'm assuming that's the reason)
Decentralisation doesn't mean I need to host everything myself. It means I can if I want to.
We'd all say Email is a pretty decentralised network, even though majority of people are with like four different dominant providers. ActivityPub is generally equated to email in a lot of explanations.
"Real decentralisation" isn't a thing people – normal people – want nor care about. They want better social apps that don't lock them in. They don't care about servers, federation, message passing, blah blah blah.
Sure, you can focus on "how hard is it to run the entire network by yourself on a raspberry pi" and for majority of people that is impossible. Sure, they could learn, but it's just not something that they *want* to learn typically.
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@thisismissem I'm sorry, where is the MAU from? I don't see it on the page you linked to.
https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth reports 5.36M (excluding users who don't interact with posts).
@stefan it comes from @laurenshof.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia AT Protocol is decentralised in that you can run the parts yourself, if you *really* want to, but you don't *need* to.
Needing to run everything yourself has a massive cost associated with it, and relies on a tonne of volunteer labour to provide infrastructure, moderation, etc.
Just because we *choose* to share resources, does not make it centralised. We can also *choose* to not share resources, which is what Blacksky has done for microblogging on AT Protocol. They have features Bluesky doesn't have. They run completely independently at all levels of infrastructure*.
There is an * here, because they are currently choosing to consume the Bluesky Moderation Service's data alongside with their own moderation service, because that provides significant value to them at this time (I'm assuming that's the reason)
Decentralisation doesn't mean I need to host everything myself. It means I can if I want to.
We'd all say Email is a pretty decentralised network, even though majority of people are with like four different dominant providers. ActivityPub is generally equated to email in a lot of explanations.
"Real decentralisation" isn't a thing people – normal people – want nor care about. They want better social apps that don't lock them in. They don't care about servers, federation, message passing, blah blah blah.
Sure, you can focus on "how hard is it to run the entire network by yourself on a raspberry pi" and for majority of people that is impossible. Sure, they could learn, but it's just not something that they *want* to learn typically.
Fair enough. Would just add that a key characteristic of a protocol is the 'cost' of 'running everything by yourself.' If that cost is very high then there is a significant barrier to real in practice decentralization. Alternetly, network protocols with a lower independent node cost will achieve effective decentralization more rapidly and with greater distribution.
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Want to thank you again for having this discussion. Fully recognize that what AT Proto folks prioritize in network architecture are not the same capabilities that ActivityPub boosters prioritize, and that it is frustrating to have this conversation here. Feel like we did make progress in clarifying and kind of agreeing about some of the respective characteristics of each protocol.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia the root argument here is that none of us are actually fighting each other, as Bluesky grows, so does the fediverse. We're fighting the big tech companies like Meta, Google and TikTok.
Fighting which decentralisation or social protocol is better doesn't serve anyone on any protocol. It just strokes egos and makes tribalism feel good.
I regularly see posts on the fediverse that are trying to fight AT Protocol. I never see the same from the AT Protocol developer community back at ActivityPub: we've recognised that fight is frankly not serving anyone.
People don't care about protocols. Ain't no one going "ewww, you use IMAP? That's so lame, you should use JMAP" because no one cares. They care about what features their email app has and if it sends emails and receives them. Maybe they care about data being hosted in EU vs US, maybe.
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Fair enough. Would just add that a key characteristic of a protocol is the 'cost' of 'running everything by yourself.' If that cost is very high then there is a significant barrier to real in practice decentralization. Alternetly, network protocols with a lower independent node cost will achieve effective decentralization more rapidly and with greater distribution.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia well, like I said before, no one has to run an AppView for 42 million people. It's a choice. There's a way to interact with the protocol and be social without needing to do that. Konbini, Red dwarf, etc all provide alternatives.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia the root argument here is that none of us are actually fighting each other, as Bluesky grows, so does the fediverse. We're fighting the big tech companies like Meta, Google and TikTok.
Fighting which decentralisation or social protocol is better doesn't serve anyone on any protocol. It just strokes egos and makes tribalism feel good.
I regularly see posts on the fediverse that are trying to fight AT Protocol. I never see the same from the AT Protocol developer community back at ActivityPub: we've recognised that fight is frankly not serving anyone.
People don't care about protocols. Ain't no one going "ewww, you use IMAP? That's so lame, you should use JMAP" because no one cares. They care about what features their email app has and if it sends emails and receives them. Maybe they care about data being hosted in EU vs US, maybe.
Honestly, it has nothing to do with fighting each other. The concern is the continued dependence of AT Proto on Bluesky PBC, and what happens if the management of the company asserts an agenda. But, that is a discussion for another forum.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber well, that's the thing: the network topology does not match that.
Sure, I could run a relay and an appview and a PDS if I really wanted to, but I don't *need* to.
That's where folks are stumbling because they think they *need* to run the entire network topology or stack, which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for individuals to do.
Instead we pool resources and work together. It's kinda like how there's been the ideas in the ActivityPub ecosystem for ages for a shared media CDN and a shared link resolver for link previews, and even shared moderation infrastructure.
Running everything gets complicated and expensive as the network grows, whether that's AT Protocol or ActivityPub.
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @cwebber Personally, I don't agree. I'm not at all saying that pooling resources is bad - far from it, actually, because every instance on the Fediverse both large and small is a shared resource (excluding those that are single-user instances, naturally) - but I also think it's vitally important that the network is built with the expectation that individuals CAN and SHOULD be able to own their own *full* slice of the pie, do so easily and cheaply, and be able to expect to have a reasonably similar user experience (even if it's not a global view). US and global politics being what they are right now, combined with seeing how Twitter enshittified the way it did, it is *massively* important to me that my social network is difficult to manipulate or control. 12 relays are much easier to exert some level of control over vs 43k+ active servers in the Fediverse (https://fedidb.com). Same goes for the independent appviews, however many of those are out there. I may technically have choice, but the limited number of relays and AppViews that are fully independent from Bsky is still a liability - and the current architecture makes it more difficult for an individual to manage.
Meanwhile, if I need to have full control over my stack in the Fediverse, all I gotta do is set up a server and throw Mastodon on it. Boom, done. I'm running fully independently now. The only external dependencies would be on the instances hosting the accounts I wish to follow. Hell I could even run this on some really limited hardware and still have a reasonably cromulent user experience.
The idea is not necessarily that such a setup should be the default - but that it should be easily possible when desired or necessary. Make the components of the network so easy and cheap to stand up yourself that it becomes supremely resilient in the face of hostile actors - anyone can stand one up with a minimum of resources. That ease of hosting also makes it easy and fun to play with and hack on and innovate from.
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Honestly, it has nothing to do with fighting each other. The concern is the continued dependence of AT Proto on Bluesky PBC, and what happens if the management of the company asserts an agenda. But, that is a discussion for another forum.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia right, like, for instance, the IETF where protocol development is moving to, as we're in the final stages of setting up a working group there: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/atp/about/
There's plenty of people building in the protocol who don't use anything related to Bluesky (none of their code, alternative relays, etc).
Bluesky PBC has designed the protocol and its layers to prevent Bluesky PBC from asserting anything over the whole network.
Though, Mastodon, whew, they asserted webfinger on everyone in ActivityPub.
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Short answer is yes. Decentralization has nothing to do with keeping some universal identifier or address. In fact, keeping a universal handle is kind of a centralized concept since some central authority must adjudicate the name.
@mastodonmigration @thisismissem Agreed with this for the most part, though I would say that the containerized identity concept is something I do actually really like about ATproto. There's been some work to bring this to ActivityPub via the ActivityPods proposal, and I hope that continues. But identity portability in the same manner as ATproto is not necessary for decentralization in my personal opinion. It's more about making it simple for anyone to participate in the network, so even if there is a dominant player and they suddenly disappear into the ether the network still can carry on without them.
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@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @cwebber Personally, I don't agree. I'm not at all saying that pooling resources is bad - far from it, actually, because every instance on the Fediverse both large and small is a shared resource (excluding those that are single-user instances, naturally) - but I also think it's vitally important that the network is built with the expectation that individuals CAN and SHOULD be able to own their own *full* slice of the pie, do so easily and cheaply, and be able to expect to have a reasonably similar user experience (even if it's not a global view). US and global politics being what they are right now, combined with seeing how Twitter enshittified the way it did, it is *massively* important to me that my social network is difficult to manipulate or control. 12 relays are much easier to exert some level of control over vs 43k+ active servers in the Fediverse (https://fedidb.com). Same goes for the independent appviews, however many of those are out there. I may technically have choice, but the limited number of relays and AppViews that are fully independent from Bsky is still a liability - and the current architecture makes it more difficult for an individual to manage.
Meanwhile, if I need to have full control over my stack in the Fediverse, all I gotta do is set up a server and throw Mastodon on it. Boom, done. I'm running fully independently now. The only external dependencies would be on the instances hosting the accounts I wish to follow. Hell I could even run this on some really limited hardware and still have a reasonably cromulent user experience.
The idea is not necessarily that such a setup should be the default - but that it should be easily possible when desired or necessary. Make the components of the network so easy and cheap to stand up yourself that it becomes supremely resilient in the face of hostile actors - anyone can stand one up with a minimum of resources. That ease of hosting also makes it easy and fun to play with and hack on and innovate from.
@baralheia @mastodonmigration that's the thing: we're comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, it is expensive and complicated to run an entire appview for 42 million users and process billions of records/events. Just like it's expensive to run hachyderm or mastodon.social (granted they're perhaps cheaper because they're a hundredth the size)
You're comparing your mastodon server which does a slice of a pie, with a bluesky appview that does the entire fucking pie, where your slice is less than 10% of the network.
Of course that is different. Anyone can see that's different, I would hope.
Like I've repeatedly said: you can run the whole pie if you want to, but you don't need to, and in fact, some people have decided that they want to, like Blacksky, and Eurosky (but they're not there yet)
The number of relays can always grow. The number of PDSes can always grow. Same with the number of independent app views. I have my own appview, but it doesn't do microblogging or bluesky stuff, because that's not what my app is about.
When 43k+ servers are 71.1% Mastodon and 11% Pixelfed (by active accounts), or ~30% each Wordpress and Ghost and 20% Mastodon by number of servers, are you really in full control? Sure, you can operate the software, but is that really "control"?
The "control" we say we have only makes us "feel good", if mastodon.social decided to defederate from you, would your Mastodon experience be the same? (you wouldn't have been able to see a significant part of this conversation, since they run mastodon.online too)
AT Protocol can scale down too: https://bsky.bad-example.com/can-atproto-scale-down/
The components of AT Protocol are cheap to run, PDSes and Relays both run on commodity hardware. It's the full-network aware AppView that is a specialized piece of software, but even without that you can still interact with the network, see Red Dwarf: https://reddwarf.app/
I guarantee you there are way more people hacking with AT Protocol than ActivityPub-based systems. The Mastodon codebase is a beast to understand fully, and I say that as someone who has been a regular contributor (100+ pull requests merged)
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia decentralized *where* and *how*
Is ActivityPub really decentralized when everyone builds for compatibility with Mastodon (apart from Lemmy) or is it only decentralized in operations? Where mastodon.social accounts for a significant portion of the network? What about Pixelfed? How much decentralization there? Loops? I think there's only really one maybe two loops servers of any size?
Decentralization doesn't mean "run absolutely everything myself", I mean, sure, you *could* but that's expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Moderation? Most servers just import some blocklist snapshot at a given point in time.
Thing is, decentralization isn't the goal, the goal is better social apps.
Decentralization focuses on technology, not people. It's the "how" not the "why" and "for who"
Decentralization isn't supposed to make things easier for the people using it. It's not supposed to be a better social "app." That's not the point. The whole reason for decentralization is to prevent admin abuse. You put up with a little more hassle as a user, and when the admin sells you out to Nazis, you'll be ready to adapt. Then sellouts don't take over the network, and nobody gets their elections rigged in favor of some tyrannical monster, or whatever.
Criticizing Activitypub for having an optional server that has too many people on it is fine, but you can't equate that to a network run by crummy venture capitalists who worked for Twitter, that won't function without permission from one central authority.
CC: @mastodonmigration@mastodon.online @baralheia@dragonchat.org -
Jack Dorsey skipped ActivityPub, built AtProto, lost Twitter, funded Bluesky, watched it become a company with VCs and a board, said it was "repeating all the mistakes," left, and now funds Nostr.
The fediverse is the only one in this story that never needed a billionaire to survive.
And it never will.
@dansup It's important to note that Dorsey left BlueSky when Bluesky introduced content moderation. That's what he meant by 'repeating all the mistakes'.
