>Decentralisation is the key... but no... just blanket hate on anything related crypto/blockchain.
Blockchains are not the be all and end all of decentralization. In fact, most decentralized use cases don't require (and performance would suffer significantly if used) blockchains at all.
I'm not hating on blockchains, they have some important uses. But decentralized communications ala the Fediverse[0] wouldn't gain anything from blockchains, and ActivityPub[1] is most certainly decentralized, and while I suppose someone could bolt a blockchain onto it, it's unclear to me what value could be added.
And there's this one weird thing I heard about the other day. It's so outlandish I thought it was somebody's psychotic fever-dream. Supposedly, there are these things called "websites." Not sure what they are, but apparently, just about anyone can set up/own/run one (or more) all by themselves on skinny hardware without any blockchains. I heard about this and just snorted derisively because that's clearly bullshit -- no one could ever do anything like that. /s
> And there's this one weird thing I heard about the other day. It's so outlandish I thought it was somebody's psychotic fever-dream. Supposedly, there are these things called "websites." Not sure what they are, but apparently, just about anyone can set up/own/run one (or more) all by themselves on skinny hardware without any blockchains.
Until someone who doesn't like you sues DNS providers for resolving your hostname, or your nameserver provider decides to kick you, or the FEDs decide to seize the server hosting it, and then you'll wish it was all on IPFS and you were using a Web3 domain (Unstoppable, ENS, etc.). It's not a panacea, but I think it would be step in the right direction.
Before we start talking about Tor (which is awesome) I'd like to remind that onion addresses are absurdly horrible and would never be adopted by mainstream, the only way to have limited domains per physical person (and thus the abillity to choose a somewhat good looking domain) is for them to cost something, and cryptocurrency is the decentralized way we have to do it for now, thus that's where Unstoppable and ENS come from.
The fediverse is not decentralized, it is “federated.” Large portions of the fediverse are censored by a few powerful admins that control the majority of users and speech that flows through the network.
Better examples of decentralized social platforms might be Bluesky or Farcaster. The former relies on DNS (which has some central points of failure) and the latter relies on Ethereum (which does not have the same central points of failure).
>The fediverse is not decentralized, it is “federated.” Large portions of the fediverse are censored by a few powerful admins that control the majority of users and speech that flows through the network.
Really? No one can force me to post (or not) anything on my Pixelfed[0] instance. And if they wanted to, they'd need to commit felonies (using violence or breaking into my premises physically or over the network) to do so.
You're seem to be under the misapprehension that self-hosting isn't viable. I don't believe so (and self-host many services), but I respect your opinion.
Don't like what "a few powerful admins that control the majority of users and speech that flows through the network?" Don't use or federate with those instances.
As I said, I run several ActivityPub instances and I don't even know who such "powerful admins" might be. Nor do I care.
I get your point, but (not attacking you here, just the idea that you have to interact with "big" sites not under your control, that (might) make moderation decisions you don't like).
If your goal is to reach the largest number of people, presumably for commercial purposes, I suppose that you might feel limited by folks who don't want your unsolicited commercial posts on or federated with their sites.
That could be limiting. But the vast majority of us just want to share and interact with people we know about non-commercial stuff. Setting up you own instance is absolutely decentralized (go ahead -- block my Pixelfed site -- I don't care -- I don't know you and I don't want to interact with you).
There are many use cases and perspectives here, but your assertion that ActivityPub (AP) (as a protocol, not any specific instance, which is why I separated the applications that run on top of AP) isn't decentralized isn't accurate.
The existence of instances with large (relatively speaking) numbers of users is irrelevant to whether or not the protocol and the platforms that rely on it are decentralized or not.
Feel free to disagree -- As I said, I get your point, but it's not relevant to any of my use cases. If the current AP ecosystem doesn't meet your needs, you have other alternatives as you mention -- But AP is definitely decentralized.
Agreed, and it's really frustrating to see how little HN understands that decentralized != 'cryptocurrency' or blockchains. There's such an immense hatred due to laziness in categorizing anything remotely close to blockchains (without regard for how close e.g. git is to these technologies). There is a lot of value in them to solve some of our problems (e.g. the foreseeable closing of Docker hub, huggingface, and many others).
Blockchains are not the be all and end all of decentralization. In fact, most decentralized use cases don't require (and performance would suffer significantly if used) blockchains at all.
I'm not hating on blockchains, they have some important uses. But decentralized communications ala the Fediverse[0] wouldn't gain anything from blockchains, and ActivityPub[1] is most certainly decentralized, and while I suppose someone could bolt a blockchain onto it, it's unclear to me what value could be added.
And there's this one weird thing I heard about the other day. It's so outlandish I thought it was somebody's psychotic fever-dream. Supposedly, there are these things called "websites." Not sure what they are, but apparently, just about anyone can set up/own/run one (or more) all by themselves on skinny hardware without any blockchains. I heard about this and just snorted derisively because that's clearly bullshit -- no one could ever do anything like that. /s
[0] https://fediverse.party/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub