Jack Dorsey skipped ActivityPub, built AtProto, lost Twitter, funded Bluesky, watched it become a company with VCs and a board, said it was "repeating all the mistakes," left, and now funds Nostr.
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@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia as someone *actively* developing on AT Protocol, I can tell you that Bluesky PBC could disappear tomorrow, and we'd just work around it. There's complete mirrors of the did:plc directory, and we'd just pick one to replace the existing directory. Sure, it'd be hugely disruptive, but life would go on. We would work around it.
There's alternative relays, hostile migration of PDSes is possible, and changing the plc directory is possible. Blacksky probably couldn't handle all of Bluesky's users suddenly all using it, because they're still new, but *shrug* life would go on.
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia When I talk about governance, the "disappearance" of a corporation is the least of the problems. The problem is what that for-profit corporation can do to the network while it retains total control. As long as the code doesn't officially transfer its governance to the community in the form of a non-profit organization or something similar, the technology will continue to be controlled by a corporation. Even with the best intentions of the contributors (which I believe are truly very good), that's the reality.
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@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia When I talk about governance, the "disappearance" of a corporation is the least of the problems. The problem is what that for-profit corporation can do to the network while it retains total control. As long as the code doesn't officially transfer its governance to the community in the form of a non-profit organization or something similar, the technology will continue to be controlled by a corporation. Even with the best intentions of the contributors (which I believe are truly very good), that's the reality.
@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia but there is code, that does the same thing that is owned by a community: https://blackskyweb.xyz
Bluesky isn't the only group building the protocol layer parts. The spec is going to the IETF for standardisation, did:plc is being transfered to a swiss association.
So bluesky has as much control over the network as we let them have.
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@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia but there is code, that does the same thing that is owned by a community: https://blackskyweb.xyz
Bluesky isn't the only group building the protocol layer parts. The spec is going to the IETF for standardisation, did:plc is being transfered to a swiss association.
So bluesky has as much control over the network as we let them have.
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Great. Our main problem isn't technology, but politics... the more independent we can be from corporations, the better. I'll look into this information. Thank you!
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@gkrnours @maswan @thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia ActivityPub is mostly oblivious to the concept of "instances". It's more actor model, and more like sending mail, and less like villages. Heck, ActivityPub doesn't even have webfinger. Technically, sharedInbox doesn't even need to be on the same domain!
Both instances-as-important and webfinger are activitypub-in-practice rather than activitypub-as-written. But maybe that's immaterial. "The purpose of the fediverse is what it does"???
@gkrnours @maswan @thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Still, if I am going to sad-cassandra-complex about it, which of course I do all the time, I do think it would be completely possible to build a social network system that's even *more* flat than AP-in-practice is today, and I think some decisions along the way, while made for good reasons, ultimately make that harder.
But, as @vv reminded me the other day (about @spritely actually), "You aren't going to have control over when people start using your tools and when they do, you will always feel like you weren't quite ready for that moment."
Which is universal... not just on the fediverse, but the ATmosphere too.
I have more to say about this soon. It's been over a year since I wrote my pieces analyzing how decentralized the Fediverse vs Bluesky/the ATmosphere is, and it deserves a revisit. Ultimately, I think my core analysis was fully correct, but the ecosystems have changed.
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@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Great. Our main problem isn't technology, but politics... the more independent we can be from corporations, the better. I'll look into this information. Thank you!
@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia yeah, and it's a very niche form of political tribalism around protocols, which in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter to every day people.
Protocols are just a means to an end user product that's simple and joyful to use.
There's interesting design choices on both sides, but at the end of the day, it's better to have two open protocols collaborating and being up against walled garden tech giants together.
Like, the repayable repository structure in AT Protocol, or the OAuth profile that they use would be s huge win to the ActivityPub ecosystem to adopt. The "apps are separate from identity and data" is also a vision in the original spirit of ActivityPub (client to server)
I'm just so sick of folks trying to divide what are otherwise two similar projects, where each project could learn a lot from esch other.
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@gkrnours @maswan @thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Still, if I am going to sad-cassandra-complex about it, which of course I do all the time, I do think it would be completely possible to build a social network system that's even *more* flat than AP-in-practice is today, and I think some decisions along the way, while made for good reasons, ultimately make that harder.
But, as @vv reminded me the other day (about @spritely actually), "You aren't going to have control over when people start using your tools and when they do, you will always feel like you weren't quite ready for that moment."
Which is universal... not just on the fediverse, but the ATmosphere too.
I have more to say about this soon. It's been over a year since I wrote my pieces analyzing how decentralized the Fediverse vs Bluesky/the ATmosphere is, and it deserves a revisit. Ultimately, I think my core analysis was fully correct, but the ecosystems have changed.
@cwebber @maswan @thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia @vv @spritely from my point of view, which is a bit naive and superficial, more flat mean more message between actor which is less efficient. Meanwhile, I think the current design could "proxy server" with little work. Instance that would provide a handle with a domain, forward message and little more. Then specialized light-weight server, easier to self host, could take advantage of that.
I need to write a PoC for that -
@cwebber @maswan @thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia @vv @spritely from my point of view, which is a bit naive and superficial, more flat mean more message between actor which is less efficient. Meanwhile, I think the current design could "proxy server" with little work. Instance that would provide a handle with a domain, forward message and little more. Then specialized light-weight server, easier to self host, could take advantage of that.
I need to write a PoC for that@gkrnours @cwebber @maswan @mastodonmigration @baralheia @vv that would probably be an interesting prototype!
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@vetehinen @mastodonmigration @baralheia @skarnio
ActivityPub is also a standard with a few dominant players involved, who get to decide things for the rest of the network. The difference you think is here really isn't.
There's like 20-30 people that work on standards in ActivityPub, maybe 200 implementers I'd guess.
Like, it's a small community, and some people/organisations have significant power in the dynamics of this network.
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@dansup capital corrupts. Nearly every damn time.
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@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia yeah, and it's a very niche form of political tribalism around protocols, which in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter to every day people.
Protocols are just a means to an end user product that's simple and joyful to use.
There's interesting design choices on both sides, but at the end of the day, it's better to have two open protocols collaborating and being up against walled garden tech giants together.
Like, the repayable repository structure in AT Protocol, or the OAuth profile that they use would be s huge win to the ActivityPub ecosystem to adopt. The "apps are separate from identity and data" is also a vision in the original spirit of ActivityPub (client to server)
I'm just so sick of folks trying to divide what are otherwise two similar projects, where each project could learn a lot from esch other.
@thisismissem @skarnio @baralheia
Again, apologies for not following all of this discussion at a detailed technical level, but reject the accusation of protocol tribalism as it implies irrational advocacy of one system over the other.
The goal here is to understand the way two different networks scale, and whether from an practical standpoint each enables power sharing sufficient to actually be resilient to a principle bad actor.
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@thisismissem @skarnio @baralheia
Again, apologies for not following all of this discussion at a detailed technical level, but reject the accusation of protocol tribalism as it implies irrational advocacy of one system over the other.
The goal here is to understand the way two different networks scale, and whether from an practical standpoint each enables power sharing sufficient to actually be resilient to a principle bad actor.
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@thisismissem @skarnio @baralheia
The assertion has been made that AT Protocol exhibits quadratic scaling amoung independent nodes. If this is the case, it is very hard to see how it can scale 'wide.' And, we seem to be seeing evidence of this as people like Blacksky attempt to do so.
The reason for concern about this is the political environment we live in where bad actors can, and do, acquire control of social media networks and assert political influence thereby.
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Honestly, it has nothing to do with fighting each other. The concern is the continued dependence of AT Proto on Bluesky PBC, and what happens if the management of the company asserts an agenda. But, that is a discussion for another forum.
@mastodonmigration @thisismissem @baralheia Well, and more likely, what happens if the PBC can't find a business model and shuts down?
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@skarnio @mastodonmigration @baralheia yeah, and it's a very niche form of political tribalism around protocols, which in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter to every day people.
Protocols are just a means to an end user product that's simple and joyful to use.
There's interesting design choices on both sides, but at the end of the day, it's better to have two open protocols collaborating and being up against walled garden tech giants together.
Like, the repayable repository structure in AT Protocol, or the OAuth profile that they use would be s huge win to the ActivityPub ecosystem to adopt. The "apps are separate from identity and data" is also a vision in the original spirit of ActivityPub (client to server)
I'm just so sick of folks trying to divide what are otherwise two similar projects, where each project could learn a lot from esch other.
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Reducing this important debate to "political tribalism" is as dangerous as considering that because it "doesn't matter to ordinary people," it shouldn't be addressed. If that were the case, neither Fediverse nor the AT protocol would exist, since decentralization isn't even an issue for "ordinary people." I don't think about the ingredients in my food every day, but I trust organizations that fight against the rampant use of pesticides and promote healthier alternatives. That's where we meet. I completely agree that fundamentalisms are harmful to any process, but we cannot ignore fundamental issues such as the centralization of power in the hands of a corporation over an alternative that presents itself as free. We are talking about a new model of online social communication for the world, so all aspects are important, and from my point of view, since I'm not a developer, the political aspect is the most important. If the Activytpub governance model needs improvement, let's criticize and fight for it publicly as well.
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@thisismissem @skarnio @baralheia
The assertion has been made that AT Protocol exhibits quadratic scaling amoung independent nodes. If this is the case, it is very hard to see how it can scale 'wide.' And, we seem to be seeing evidence of this as people like Blacksky attempt to do so.
The reason for concern about this is the political environment we live in where bad actors can, and do, acquire control of social media networks and assert political influence thereby.
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@mastodonmigration @skarnio @baralheia AT Protocol doesn't exhibit quadratic scaling in practice.
You can configure any network in its least optimal form and therefore create inefficiencies.
It's just like AT Protocol's properties applied to ActivityPub create some really weird outcomes. Trying to deploy AT Protocol as you would ActivityPub is ignoring the fact that these protocols have different network topologies.
We can find ways that AP, too, performs horribly.
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@mastodonmigration @thisismissem @baralheia Well, and more likely, what happens if the PBC can't find a business model and shuts down?
@timbray @mastodonmigration @baralheia by the time PBC shutsdown, we should be well along the way to standardisation at IETF, and more players in the ecosystem means less importance of one entity.
What would happen if Mastodon gGmbH/Inc disappeared tomorrow? It'd significantly hurt the fediverse too, because of how much of the fediverse is concentrated there.
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@mastodonmigration @skarnio @baralheia AT Protocol doesn't exhibit quadratic scaling in practice.
You can configure any network in its least optimal form and therefore create inefficiencies.
It's just like AT Protocol's properties applied to ActivityPub create some really weird outcomes. Trying to deploy AT Protocol as you would ActivityPub is ignoring the fact that these protocols have different network topologies.
We can find ways that AP, too, performs horribly.
@thisismissem @skarnio @baralheia
"AT Protocol doesn't exhibit quadratic scaling in practice."
Respectfully, it certainly seems to. Understanding that there are advantages, but even your example of Blacksky having to build a massive resource scaled to all users on the network in order to be independent of Bluesky PBC demonstrates that any such enterprise will have the same requirement.
Replicated across all such efforts, this seems like the definition of quadratic scaling.
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@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia Great. Our main problem isn't technology, but politics... the more independent we can be from corporations, the better. I'll look into this information. Thank you!
Here are links to help read more about what Emelia said.
Independent PLC Directory:
https://atproto.com/blog/plc-directory-orgAT on IETF:
https://atproto.com/blog/taking-at-to-the-ietf
Creating the Working Group:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/atp/about/ -
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @baralheia My analysis assumes a network architecture in which each node is a major participant in the functionality of the network, because as I argue in the piece, from a power distribution perspective of decentralization, it is important. What I describe in the piece is that if you want more than a pantheon of gods-eye view participants, then not having addressed delivery means that the system can't scale down.
And this is true: you can run a gotosocial node that isn't *dependent* on other major players in the network, and it scales down great.
The question is whether or not that matters and is important to people. Maybe it doesn't, I don't know. It matters to me, though.
@cwebber @thisismissem @baralheia
"...not having addressed delivery means that the system can't scale down"
Getting back to the subject of 'quadratic scaling', unless completely missing the point, which is very possible, this seems to be the crux of the matter. There needs to be a mechanism for independent elements to 'see' everything. If that mechanism scales relative to the total network, you have quadratic scaling. If it scales relative to the element size you have linear scaling.
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@cwebber @thisismissem @baralheia
"...not having addressed delivery means that the system can't scale down"
Getting back to the subject of 'quadratic scaling', unless completely missing the point, which is very possible, this seems to be the crux of the matter. There needs to be a mechanism for independent elements to 'see' everything. If that mechanism scales relative to the total network, you have quadratic scaling. If it scales relative to the element size you have linear scaling.
@mastodonmigration @cwebber @baralheia I could build an application that tracks just its users, doesn't use a relay, doesn't have a full-network view, and talks directly to PDSes. That's possible in AT Protocol's architecture. It's just not the main way people do things because it comes with trade-offs, just as message passing comes with its own trade-offs.
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If ATProto can overcome its origins and single point of failure, great.
But it's gross to gaslight ActivityPub developers that those origins don't exist and it never happened, and don't talk about them when strangers are watching.
Well, here's another shoutout to WAFRN for allowing me to have an account rooted in the Fediverse, that allows me to interact without a bridge to everyone on Bluesky, thus somewhat getting over that potential SPF (in that if Bluesky's relays completely go down, my account and its Fediverse connections still remain)
