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by weare138 113 days ago
But how is that 'decentralized' which was the entire point of Bluesky and the AT protocol to begin with? We're just back to running centralized services. Without decentralization this is just XMPP with extra steps. You might as well just run something like Movim and save yourself the hassle.
2 comments
runako 112 days ago
There's "decentralized" in the sense that every device runs the whole stack. In an analogy to another protocol, this would be like running SMTP and IMAP on your phone and laptop.

Then there's "decentralized" in the sense that the protocols that govern are open and anyone can plug in without permission. This is how email works in practice. Most people do not choose to run their own email servers, but they nonetheless benefit from the fact that people who are interested can do so and provide email service.

Bluesky is the second kind of decentralized.

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Suppafly 112 days ago
>Bluesky is the second kind of decentralized.

But why do we keep getting articles trying to convince us that it needs to be the first kind?

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verdverm 111 days ago
There are some people in other networks who feel very strongly their answer is the right answer to the great question of decentralization [insert south park atheist otters]. I think they are in part frustrated that ATProto (not the "right" answer) has attracted the users and developer. The meanness and lack of curiosity certainly provide the undertones to justify this interpretation.
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kevinak 112 days ago
Because centralization matters. It is what stops a hostile agent from ruining things. There is no real win in being "semi-decentralized".
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runako 111 days ago
Purists. There are some people who run email for their personal domains on Raspberry Pi machines sitting in their homes. Maybe they want everyone to live the same way?

Personally, I think it's better that there is choice. I do not want to run my own social media site any more than I wanted to run an IRC server.

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verdverm 112 days ago
> the entire point of Bluesky and the AT protocol

is really to find a good enough middle ground that has competitive enough UX to get people off of the fully centralized, locked in social media providers. In the broader context, ATProto to me means user choice and provenance, which ATProto does better than any other protocol. See all the parts beyond just data hosting, where the entire distributed system is plug-n-play. [1]

ATProto not being purist, preferring pragmatism, is what attracts me over alternatives like AP and Nostr.

[1] https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers

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