this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you want a decentralize Twitter clone. Mastodon is the only pick.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Let's be real, most instances suck. Can't search, can't see how many interactions a post had. It's not the same experience

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

the shit doesn't even work for me half the time. the app just spins. super great 👍

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

"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

[–] [email protected] 92 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

It’s not exactly decentralized if you use the official relay only, just distributed which is a different concept entirely

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's also not, like, unattainable

But it's definitely well beyond what any hobbyist is going to set up in a whim

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Meh, homelab storage and FTTH are reasonably cheap. Or rented iron like Hetzner.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (15 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apparently the instances are connected to a central hub.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Instances plural? Are there other instances?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I assume so. There's a download and setup instructions here.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

No decentralization atm.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Im more interested hows the privacy policy? Im too lazy to read it atm

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