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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@sheislaurence did:plc is spinning out to an independent org, relays are only necessary for things at scale (& aren’t used for user discovery), and relays currently cost $20/month for 42M accounts.
I presented at Fedicon last year about a selection of the many apps being built https://bmannconsulting.com/notes/beyond-microblogging-atproto/
For completeness, because of account architecture, ATProto doesn’t have a private data option today.
@boris thank you!
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber An AppView typically consumes data from a single full-network relay, with failover. A PDS typically has subscriptions from 1 or more relays for data. There are also some relays that just consume other relays.
Adding more PDSes means more connections for relays, adding more relays means more subscriptions to individual PDSes for data.
There's like, a dozen or so relays operating in full-network mode, as far as I know, and relays don't do archival anymore, which was the largest cost.
@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Still not seeing it. On the ingest side, traffic should only be proportional to total users on that node. If a node is smaller it should only generate network data traffic to service its own users. Actually less than that due to caching.
The beauty of AP seems to be precisely that it uses caching to enable individual nodes to scale storage and processing linearly both as regards serving and ingesting data.
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@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Still not seeing it. On the ingest side, traffic should only be proportional to total users on that node. If a node is smaller it should only generate network data traffic to service its own users. Actually less than that due to caching.
The beauty of AP seems to be precisely that it uses caching to enable individual nodes to scale storage and processing linearly both as regards serving and ingesting data.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber right, so on the ingest side, if you want to build an application that is ingesting all the data from bluesky, then you'd be asking the relay for all records targeting the app.bsky.* NSID and all events about repositories that contain the app.bsky.actor.profile record.
That's 42 million accounts across however many PDSes.
That's specifically for an AppView where you *want* a full network copy of all microblogging data. That's obviously going to be expensive.
You can also build a system where you say "Actually, only give me data from these accounts" (partial network copy). Konbini is one such project: https://github.com/whyrusleeping/konbini
Doll's Aurora Prism is another project in this space: https://github.com/dollspace-gay/Aurora-Prism
If I build an app with my own lexicon, I don't need to process all that bluesky data. I process only the data for accounts using my application.
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@dansup I'm laughing out loud at how bad the Nostr homepage copy is. What's that law where techbros building communication tools don't understand that communication is important....?
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber right, so on the ingest side, if you want to build an application that is ingesting all the data from bluesky, then you'd be asking the relay for all records targeting the app.bsky.* NSID and all events about repositories that contain the app.bsky.actor.profile record.
That's 42 million accounts across however many PDSes.
That's specifically for an AppView where you *want* a full network copy of all microblogging data. That's obviously going to be expensive.
You can also build a system where you say "Actually, only give me data from these accounts" (partial network copy). Konbini is one such project: https://github.com/whyrusleeping/konbini
Doll's Aurora Prism is another project in this space: https://github.com/dollspace-gay/Aurora-Prism
If I build an app with my own lexicon, I don't need to process all that bluesky data. I process only the data for accounts using my application.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber in Christine's article (and I've just spoken with her about it), it assumes a network topology that does not exist in the real world.
It assumes that every user is on a different pds, and every user runs a full network relay. The reality is that multiple users are usually on a single PDS, and there's only like 12 relays.
- 2 from bluesky (+ 1 deprecated)
- 2 from hose.cam
- 1 from blacksky
- 1 from upcloud
- 3 from firehose.networkplus a few more from various people.
In the ActivityPub ecosystem for every user to message every other user, you need connections between 30,000 servers.
For the same in AT Protocol, you need connections between N PDS to one or more relays (most use the bluesky relay, which others get their list of PDSes from).
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber in Christine's article (and I've just spoken with her about it), it assumes a network topology that does not exist in the real world.
It assumes that every user is on a different pds, and every user runs a full network relay. The reality is that multiple users are usually on a single PDS, and there's only like 12 relays.
- 2 from bluesky (+ 1 deprecated)
- 2 from hose.cam
- 1 from blacksky
- 1 from upcloud
- 3 from firehose.networkplus a few more from various people.
In the ActivityPub ecosystem for every user to message every other user, you need connections between 30,000 servers.
For the same in AT Protocol, you need connections between N PDS to one or more relays (most use the bluesky relay, which others get their list of PDSes from).
@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber on activitypub, if I have 30,000 followers (1 follower per server), and I want to post a message, my server has to send out 30,000 messages.
In AT Protocol, if I want to do the same write operation, I send one http request to my PDS, the PDS then publishes that message to N connected relays (where N =< 12)
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@quillmatiq @evan @dansup I have been thinking about trying to do some sort of protocol bridging with my project Fedi+ but then that runs the risk of people like FediTips getting on the wrong side of things being like oh Fedi+ interacts with fashists or whatever all because of the protocol being associated with Bluesky, which verified ICE and other US government accounts, and so on. My goal with Fedi+ is to not only create that vibe people loved when Google+ was around, but also to make it super easy for people who don't care about Mastodon or ActivityPub or whatever to join on and not even need to think about the protocols behind the scenes.
@alexchapman @quillmatiq @evan @dansup
Have you looked at WAFRN for inspiration on the dual protocol side of things
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@alexchapman @quillmatiq @evan @dansup
Have you looked at WAFRN for inspiration on the dual protocol side of things
@gbargoud @quillmatiq @evan @dansup Ye they do something where you enable the integration and it sets up some sort of additional account thing, kinda complex.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber right, so on the ingest side, if you want to build an application that is ingesting all the data from bluesky, then you'd be asking the relay for all records targeting the app.bsky.* NSID and all events about repositories that contain the app.bsky.actor.profile record.
That's 42 million accounts across however many PDSes.
That's specifically for an AppView where you *want* a full network copy of all microblogging data. That's obviously going to be expensive.
You can also build a system where you say "Actually, only give me data from these accounts" (partial network copy). Konbini is one such project: https://github.com/whyrusleeping/konbini
Doll's Aurora Prism is another project in this space: https://github.com/dollspace-gay/Aurora-Prism
If I build an app with my own lexicon, I don't need to process all that bluesky data. I process only the data for accounts using my application.
@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @cwebber Side tangent: if you build your own app that uses a different Lexicon than Bluesky, can you still interoperate with BlueSky users? Because for many, the desire is to have things operate like the Fediverse, where (for one example) a post on Loops can be seen in the home timeline for a Mastodon user, et al.
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@thisismissem @mastodonmigration @cwebber Side tangent: if you build your own app that uses a different Lexicon than Bluesky, can you still interoperate with BlueSky users? Because for many, the desire is to have things operate like the Fediverse, where (for one example) a post on Loops can be seen in the home timeline for a Mastodon user, et al.
@baralheia @mastodonmigration @cwebber you'd need to write a record in your own lexicon and then write a cross-post record in the Bluesky lexicon, for the post to show up on bluesky feeds.
For instance, I wrote a review on popfeed.social: https://popfeed.social/review/at:/did:plc:5w4eqcxzw5jv5qfnmzxcakfy/social.popfeed.feed.review/3mezfspxcbk2j
And when I did that, I opted to cross-post to bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisismissem.social/post/3mezfv3ydp22j
However, such a conversion is inherently lossy. This is true for ActivityPub as well.
You can also write an application that uses the bluesky social graph whilst writing records to your own lexicon without doing bluesky posts.
Or you can have your own social graph. Maybe instead of following people (actors in AP) you're actually following topics, or hashtags, or a website. The AP concept of "following" is limited to following an Actor, which is something that can send and receive activities, where as on AT Protocol, "following" is an application concern where you work with links between data.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber on activitypub, if I have 30,000 followers (1 follower per server), and I want to post a message, my server has to send out 30,000 messages.
In AT Protocol, if I want to do the same write operation, I send one http request to my PDS, the PDS then publishes that message to N connected relays (where N =< 12)
@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Really appreciate you engaging in this discussion. Will take some time to reflect on what you are saying and try to frame it in generic network model language along the lines of what Christine has put forward.
For this purpose propose we agree that independent nodes be defined as fully autonomous, capable of operating on the network independent of all other components and interacting with all users of on the network (except the PLC directory).
Again, thanks.
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@baralheia @mastodonmigration @cwebber you'd need to write a record in your own lexicon and then write a cross-post record in the Bluesky lexicon, for the post to show up on bluesky feeds.
For instance, I wrote a review on popfeed.social: https://popfeed.social/review/at:/did:plc:5w4eqcxzw5jv5qfnmzxcakfy/social.popfeed.feed.review/3mezfspxcbk2j
And when I did that, I opted to cross-post to bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisismissem.social/post/3mezfv3ydp22j
However, such a conversion is inherently lossy. This is true for ActivityPub as well.
You can also write an application that uses the bluesky social graph whilst writing records to your own lexicon without doing bluesky posts.
Or you can have your own social graph. Maybe instead of following people (actors in AP) you're actually following topics, or hashtags, or a website. The AP concept of "following" is limited to following an Actor, which is something that can send and receive activities, where as on AT Protocol, "following" is an application concern where you work with links between data.
@baralheia @mastodonmigration like, say I publish a song on Bandwagon, maybe I publish it with album art, I include the track listing, the credits for songwriting, production, etc. Maybe I also include the lyrics for each track.
If Bandwagon cross-posts that to Mastodon, or wants to publish an activity in a form that Mastodon understands, then that data obviously can't all be sent to Mastodon, so instead you post something like:
> Introducing our new album “Music for the soul“ available now on our bandwagon: https://...
And that's actually perfectly fine. In fact, the anti-pattern in ActivityPub is the reduction of literally everything to a Note, just to be compatible with Mastodon.
Like, you'd expect Loops to publish a Video object, but no, it publishes a Note: https://blog.joinloops.org/loops-joins-the-fediverse/#:~:text=Smart%20Content%20Representation
This is an anti-pattern that's been repeated across the fediverse ad-infinitum, and reduces all our content to what can be represented in a Note, which is designed for microblogging.
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@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Really appreciate you engaging in this discussion. Will take some time to reflect on what you are saying and try to frame it in generic network model language along the lines of what Christine has put forward.
For this purpose propose we agree that independent nodes be defined as fully autonomous, capable of operating on the network independent of all other components and interacting with all users of on the network (except the PLC directory).
Again, thanks.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber well, that's the thing: the network topology does not match that.
Sure, I could run a relay and an appview and a PDS if I really wanted to, but I don't *need* to.
That's where folks are stumbling because they think they *need* to run the entire network topology or stack, which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for individuals to do.
Instead we pool resources and work together. It's kinda like how there's been the ideas in the ActivityPub ecosystem for ages for a shared media CDN and a shared link resolver for link previews, and even shared moderation infrastructure.
Running everything gets complicated and expensive as the network grows, whether that's AT Protocol or ActivityPub.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia @cwebber well, that's the thing: the network topology does not match that.
Sure, I could run a relay and an appview and a PDS if I really wanted to, but I don't *need* to.
That's where folks are stumbling because they think they *need* to run the entire network topology or stack, which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for individuals to do.
Instead we pool resources and work together. It's kinda like how there's been the ideas in the ActivityPub ecosystem for ages for a shared media CDN and a shared link resolver for link previews, and even shared moderation infrastructure.
Running everything gets complicated and expensive as the network grows, whether that's AT Protocol or ActivityPub.
@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Well, understand there may be advantages to separating components. However, the entire marketing premise of network 'decentralization' is grounded in the idea of independence of the network nodes. If this is no longer the key design objective, then we really aren't talking about a decentralized network. It sounds fine to say elements share burden and work together, but what happens when a dependent element decides not to cooperate? Isn't this the whole point?
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@thisismissem @baralheia @cwebber
Well, understand there may be advantages to separating components. However, the entire marketing premise of network 'decentralization' is grounded in the idea of independence of the network nodes. If this is no longer the key design objective, then we really aren't talking about a decentralized network. It sounds fine to say elements share burden and work together, but what happens when a dependent element decides not to cooperate? Isn't this the whole point?
@mastodonmigration @baralheia decentralized *where* and *how*
Is ActivityPub really decentralized when everyone builds for compatibility with Mastodon (apart from Lemmy) or is it only decentralized in operations? Where mastodon.social accounts for a significant portion of the network? What about Pixelfed? How much decentralization there? Loops? I think there's only really one maybe two loops servers of any size?
Decentralization doesn't mean "run absolutely everything myself", I mean, sure, you *could* but that's expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Moderation? Most servers just import some blocklist snapshot at a given point in time.
Thing is, decentralization isn't the goal, the goal is better social apps.
Decentralization focuses on technology, not people. It's the "how" not the "why" and "for who"
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia decentralized *where* and *how*
Is ActivityPub really decentralized when everyone builds for compatibility with Mastodon (apart from Lemmy) or is it only decentralized in operations? Where mastodon.social accounts for a significant portion of the network? What about Pixelfed? How much decentralization there? Loops? I think there's only really one maybe two loops servers of any size?
Decentralization doesn't mean "run absolutely everything myself", I mean, sure, you *could* but that's expensive, complicated, and time consuming. Moderation? Most servers just import some blocklist snapshot at a given point in time.
Thing is, decentralization isn't the goal, the goal is better social apps.
Decentralization focuses on technology, not people. It's the "how" not the "why" and "for who"
@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
@mastodonmigration @baralheia Is it really decentralized if, for most people, their identity (i.e., handle) is tied to a domain that they don't control (because they don't want to operate social apps, they just want to use them), and migrating from one provider to another looses all their data apart from their follow graph (which still looses some data)
(sure, LOLA might help with this, maybe, but it's just a technical demo right now)
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia if an independent element decides to not cooperate, you just route around. Sure, you may have a temporary outage, but it's manageable.
For example, a popular labeler for pronouns on bluesky went offline the other day. Within 24 hours, Blacksky had shipped native pronouns support within their social app.
Seems like we are losing focus here. If the model is one principly centralized platform where satellites offload and contribute resources many interesting things are possible, and it may be a more fun and interesting development environment, but it is still dependent on the centralized platform.
Real decentralization is hard, but the advantage is true node independence. If real decentralization is not the operative model, then it should not be the marketing slogan.
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@mastodonmigration @baralheia Is it really decentralized if, for most people, their identity (i.e., handle) is tied to a domain that they don't control (because they don't want to operate social apps, they just want to use them), and migrating from one provider to another looses all their data apart from their follow graph (which still looses some data)
(sure, LOLA might help with this, maybe, but it's just a technical demo right now)
Short answer is yes. Decentralization has nothing to do with keeping some universal identifier or address. In fact, keeping a universal handle is kind of a centralized concept since some central authority must adjudicate the name.
