I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@cthos @aeva I don't have an answer to this question. I've seen various claimed attempts to ballpark this number, but I expect it will change month to month, so even if I trusted the numbers I saw (I don't) there's no guarantee they're still accurate.

The Big Problem as I see it is since every "tower" contains the entire network, if the amount of traffic on bluesky doubles, the operating costs of each tower doubles. The "oh shit this is harder than I thought" problem is even worse than fedi.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@cthos @aeva Every Bluesky replica is, probably without realizing it, making a bet that Bluesky has already plateaued.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@swetland @mcc @aeva

because #bluesky operates on the #cryptoBro credo (since bluesky is run by crypto bros)

in #crypto, the con is:

1. promise a lot
2. don't deliver
3. but nevertheless generate adoring devotion off of the promise

this works like gangbusters

because people want to believe. they even get defensive and angry when you point out promise vs reality

it's a hack of human psychology

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@mcc @cthos ah I was hoping Blacksky found a way around that problem, but I have no idea whether or not that is even possible because I have no idea how AT works.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@swetland @aeva Yeah. I am using the exact alternate infrastructure that the bluesky reps point to as proof their system works. And I *still* cannot tell, if Bluesky banned someone and Blacksky disagrees with the ban, if I would be able to see that person's posts or not. In response to this thread I've had one person tell me I'm underestimating Blacksky's stack coverage and another tell me I'm overestimating it.

[jdp23@neuromatch.social]

@mcc well, it's incremental implementation. Having their own client lets them make different blocking decisions from Bluesky, so is useful in its own right even though it doesn't get all the way there. The real value of the appview will kick in once it's got the equivalent of local-only posts.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@aeva @cthos either you rely on bluesky to get the content (meaning you have to trust them to convey the content) or you prepare and mirror the content yourself. No real third option, fundamentally. If there were several blacksky-like towers then they could potentially pool resources, but no other actor has gotten as far as blacksky so there's no one to pool with.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@jdp23 "Having their own client lets them make different blocking decisions from Bluesky"

How?

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@txtechnician @mcc

this is the ticking time bomb

venture capital has sunk a big investment in bluesky, and at some point they are going to ask for a return

and then bluesky goes the way of twitter

"black fedi vs queer fedi" is mostly confined to a few notable drama ego characters

it's not devouring communities, there's plenty of black folk and queer folk on the fediverse completely untouched by it

but drama *is* drama

it does drive people away

and the bullying is real

[jdp23@neuromatch.social]

@mcc Blocks are "enforced" at the client level. I know, I know, that probably merits another "oh dear" but that's how Bluesky is doing it. So blacksky.community as a client doesn't do age verification for DMs in the UK, or block access to Mississippi.

Takedowns by contrast are at the AppView and someties PDS level.

[groupnebula563@mastodon.social]

@jef @mcc well, it's better to be optimistic. if you condemn yourself to never believing something will happen, then what's driving you to try anyways

[msh@coales.co]

@swetland that is pretty much the intention of the ATmosphere's design. The vision of this "composable moderation" is to allow independent "labeller" or filter services be able to process the firehose of relay traffic.

I do find the atmosphere approach interesting but its "service oriented" design seems to fight against the nature (or original intentions at least) of the host-centric internet we all try to navigate.

I think that, if reasonableness prevails, ATproto and ActivityPub will end up cross pollinating ideas and resembling each other more. Oddly enough they are both hobbled by the same problem to some degree...the dominance of a single entity hampering the true potential each has (Bluesky and Mastodon or at least Gargron's Big Instances).

One thing is pretty certain at least... The dominant platform within the fediverse driving certain communities away was a more significant factor in why Bluesky gained traction than any technical design decisions either network made.

@mcc @gbargoud

[alter_kaker@hachyderm.io]

@esoteric_programmer so this is all within my ability. But what about the rest of the stack? To my understanding, the PDS and view? As @mcc says things have to change in a social level but the first step is more nodes...

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@msh @swetland @gbargoud From what I see, some communities were driven away by community issues, others (im thinking indie gamedev Twitter and comics artists) just couldn't navigate the additional friction of Mastodon's model. It wasn't all one thing. And I doubt you can chalk up the community issues to just one server, or at least, if there were one server I don't think it would be mastodon dot social (I have an instance in mind but don't feel like naming names)

[contrasocial@mastodon.social]

@mcc

I'm mainly surprised that the facade fell so early with Bluesky. I expected atleast another few years before something happened to expose the reality.

[eblu@activitypub.space]

msh@coales.co Something that I also feel is important is that moderation services are all responsible for the entire network. They can limit scope by just focusing on Bluesky posts or zeroing in on a specific subject, but it seems like a very steep mountain to climb and the more likely situation is that they just leave space for someone else to come in. Considering that Bluesky's moderation service has been the only global one for years at this point, it's safe to assume that it's load-bearing which makes it that much harder to actually unsubscribe from the moderation service without being exposed to all sorts of harmful content. It's a sort of "decentralized, but the barrier of entry is so high that it's mostly effectively centralized" situation there—hopefully we'll see someone (probably Blacksky) overcome that hurdle.

[bhasic@mastodon.social]

@benroyce @swetland @mcc @aeva

[eblu@activitypub.space]

On the flipside however, the fediverse deals with its own moderation problems. Some "too big to defederate" instance is left untouched for long enough for someone to slip in and post CSAM and suddenly it's everyone else's problem because there isn't any way to coordinate cross-server moderation decisions, and don't get me started on the amount of times that entire communities have been cut off and split apart over an admin/moderator deciding that they don't like the actions of a few individuals. It's part of why I don't feel comfortable self hosting in all honesty

[fabrice@fosstodon.org]

@mcc Which PDS implementation are you self hosting with?

[mnordhoff@infosec.exchange]

@mcc There's also https://plc.directory/, the did:plc: database, also run by Bluesky.

("plc" stands for "placeholder", because they aspire to figure out something blockchain decentralized later.)

I think Bluesky can inconvenience people at best, or hijack their accounts at worst, especially if they were using a Bluesky PDS and Bluesky has all the keys. But I don't know/remember the exact implications.