[bnewbold]

hundreds (thousands?) of users have signed up for Bluesky Social, then moved their accounts to independent hosts. folks can use https://zeppelin.social/ as a totally free-standing bluesky posting experience that interoperates with the full network.

Bluesky Social still clearly dominates the ecosystem, but there is no single component of the system that does not have a open/alternative option for exit.

Do you disagree? Is there a specific centralized component you take issue with?

[ttiurani]

> there is no single component of the system that does not have a open/alternative option for exit.

Users can move their follows, followers and posts to zeppelin.social fron BlueSky transparently?

Now you can of course debate on what "decenttalized" means, but in a social network easy migration between servers is the crucial feature that would allow the decentralized network to emerge.

Edit. Does the network actually work over at zeppelin.social alone if Bluesky servers go down?

[bnewbold]

Yes, all of those social graph relationships are hinged off a permanent identifier (DID) and everything comes along when accounts migrate PDS instances. Folks can use zeppelin.social from any PDS instance. The DID PLC directory is currently hosted by Bluesky, but the directory can be forked, and did:web identifiers can be used as an alternative (and several independence-minded folks in the network do so).

Migration between servers is so seamless that is causes confusion and doubt that the protocol even supports migration, because there is basically zero in-app visibility of which users are on which server.

Yes, the network continues to work on zeppelin.social if Bluesky servers are down.

[jcgl]

> Now you can of course debate on what "decenttalized" means, but in a social network easy migration between servers is the crucial feature that would allow the decentralized network to emerge.

I totally agree. However, a lot of people in the fediverse/ActivityPub world apparently (?) disagree, seeing as your domain is tightly coupled to your server, i.e. no name portability. Seems like a wild oversight to me, and getting massive instances like matrix.org and mastadon.social seems like an inevitable consequence.

Lack of name portability implies greater risk when choosing a server. Greater risk when choosing a server means choosing comparatively less risky servers. Choosing comparatively less risky servers means choosing more well-known servers. Thus you have the GMail-ification of the fediverse.

[FiloSottile]

> Users can move their follows, followers and posts to zeppelin.social fron BlueSky transparently?

Yes, even if Bluesky was down (as long as they have a backup) which is not the case for ActivityPub.

[isodev]

Even if set aside the details on dependence on bluesky infrastructure, the effort to host “all components” is quite expensive and technology-intensive with significant cost for storage and compute. For example, a deployment of “all the things” (just for you) is in the ballpark of 70-100€/month because the way things are designed to work. And that’s not even factoring the burden of managing the whole range of technologies involved.

Making it hard to setup or run, complex to understand or change are also forms of discouraging independent use.

[egypturnash]

zeppelin.social just gives me a black page with a stylized yellow scarab on it on desktop Safari, Mac Firefox, and Mac Chrome, with or without adblock.