How decentralized is Bluesky really? - A technical deepdive by one of the ActivityPub creators (dustycloud.org)
from tavostator@feddit.org to fediverse@lemmy.world on 04 Dec 20:51
https://feddit.org/post/5371604

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MyOpinion@lemm.ee on 04 Dec 21:51 next collapse

It’s not.

Aatube@kbin.melroy.org on 05 Dec 00:38 collapse

TL;DR: Bluesky isn’t feasibly federated due to hardware demands of self-hosting the relay—which would require every instance to host the same, synced copy of the entirety of Twitter everywhere—among other things, but is great at providing what its committed corporation calls a centralized “credible exit“: “if Bluesky Social PBC goes out of business or loses users’ trust, other providers can step in to provide an equivalent service using the same dataset and the same protocols”

p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 05 Dec 14:36 collapse

That seems less than ideal. And yet, here we are with it being way more popular than Mastodon.

Were people really that damn confused over “which instance do I join”?

smeg@feddit.uk on 05 Dec 16:19 next collapse

Could be as simple as blue sky having the money behind it to advertise it more

Die4Ever@programming.dev on 18 Dec 18:47 collapse

Yeah I could see this being a big factor. Advertising money can also mean directly paying people to use it, and hoping some of their followers might come along.

Aatube@kbin.melroy.org on 05 Dec 18:29 next collapse

People don’t care about decentralization as long as they have a credible exit; in fact, many may prefer the features of centralization. Bluesky also has an algorithm.

Shatur@lemmy.ml on 06 Dec 11:04 collapse

I think people dislike the experience.

For example, on Mastodon your profile discoverability is disabled in settings by default. I guess it’s needed to optimize the hosting cost, but people also like being heard. Also people don’t know who to follow since there are no algorithms or starter packs right now. And if you have a post from another instance, you need a browser extension to open it on yours. That’s the complains I saw.

As a Mastodon user, I hope we solve them!