I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
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And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc what exactly is the benefit of migrating to a non bluesky PDS? I understand being on an entirely different vertical stack like Blacksky or Northsky but what does being on a PDS give you? Aren't you still (almost) entirely at bluesky's mercy?
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@mcc For my own understanding: while the server architecture is different, the same thing could happen on the Fediverse, right? (Except portability is worse.) The only thing saving it is that mastodon.social is only the plurality of users, maybe a majority, but not the overwhelming majority?
@jrose @mcc Even the portability being better is somewhat theoretical right now because if your identity is using did:plc then you are unable to move away from did:plc and Bluesky PBC has custody of your keys... And also like people have noticed hosting your own data in a PDS does not really make you independent from their actions so the point of doing it is somewhat unclear.
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@mcc "tried to adopt Fediverse first and basically got harassed off."
what does this mean, exactly? you don't have to interact with any other instance on the whole stack if you don't want to. what I'm guessing is this actually means people tried to signup for mastodon.social which is a shithole and then that got conflated with the whole fediverse@nullpotential @mcc people on Bluesky who have soured on fedi often complain about having been lectured about using alt text and CWs for what it's worth.
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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
@benroyce @txtechnician @mcc the funding is an interesting one. If we don't hear anything new about another BSky funding round in the next 6 months they'll start being close to running dry (they're currently closing in on one year since the last round that was supposed to be for two years and had a failed one early 2025)
Some of these recent troubling decisions may already be influenced by that. They've said they want to start running ads and that has implications for moderation for example.
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@mcc @alter_kaker "I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord"
But... why are they not using... no OK never mind.
I'm so glad for this thread! I've had a bazillion questions about AT but nowhere to ask them. I really think there should be an "other protocols" channel on activitypub.space though. This is not "Technical discussion about ActivityPub-related topics" and sooner or later someone's gonna get angry at us.
mat@friendica.exon.name I am not opposed to a category discussing alternatives protocols.
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@mcc @alter_kaker "I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord"
But... why are they not using... no OK never mind.
I'm so glad for this thread! I've had a bazillion questions about AT but nowhere to ask them. I really think there should be an "other protocols" channel on activitypub.space though. This is not "Technical discussion about ActivityPub-related topics" and sooner or later someone's gonna get angry at us.
@mat @mcc @alter_kaker I can recommend joining ATProto Touchers discord (was renamed a few months ago)
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@mat @mcc @alter_kaker I can recommend joining ATProto Touchers discord (was renamed a few months ago)
@mcc @thisismissem @alter_kaker Noted, but I don't really want to create another online account. I've never used Discord in my life, and not really keen to start. In any case, I'm after the AP-side perspective of how AT works. -
@mcc @thisismissem @alter_kaker Noted, but I don't really want to create another online account. I've never used Discord in my life, and not really keen to start. In any case, I'm after the AP-side perspective of how AT works.
@mat @mcc @alter_kaker I also use discord for Mastodon and Fedify development, but don't feel obliged to join, I'm just saying it's a good server
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@lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer My understanding is that relays have a "replay since timestamp X" functionality, so that consumers that go down for a while can get back up and running. Originally relays by definition had to support any X back to the beginning of time, leading to absurd storage costs. Today they are allowed to have a much shorter window, meaning in effect the storage cost is insignificant and it's the network cost that dominates. Unless I'm mistaken, the canonical store of a user's posting history is and always was the PDS.
@mat @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer I would think making the PDS the canonical store would conflict with the idea of credible exit. You end up either weakening the notion of canonicity since moving an account changes the canonical location, or undermining the credibility of exit since canonical location stays with a PDS the author has left.
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@mat @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer I would think making the PDS the canonical store would conflict with the idea of credible exit. You end up either weakening the notion of canonicity since moving an account changes the canonical location, or undermining the credibility of exit since canonical location stays with a PDS the author has left.
@lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer This moves into a lot of stuff about distributed identity that I don't get. But certainly the Fediverse has the same problem. Ultimately the credible exit is waving goodbye to your history, somehow letting your followers know you've got a new handle, and hoping they update their contacts. That sounds hard, but it's still a fairly credible exit, since your followers don't have to move too. -
@mcc what exactly is the benefit of migrating to a non bluesky PDS? I understand being on an entirely different vertical stack like Blacksky or Northsky but what does being on a PDS give you? Aren't you still (almost) entirely at bluesky's mercy?
@eniko @mcc If I understand correctly (and it is possible and likely that I don't), if you host your own PDS, you can use the rest of the stack from Bluesky, get banned, and migrate to Blacksky without losing your post history. And theoretically your social graph, though in practice Bluesky will be blocking almost everyone in it.
I've no interest in it either way, given that Bluesky is the toxic liberalism site in the same way that X the Everything App is the toxic reactionary site.
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@eniko @mcc If I understand correctly (and it is possible and likely that I don't), if you host your own PDS, you can use the rest of the stack from Bluesky, get banned, and migrate to Blacksky without losing your post history. And theoretically your social graph, though in practice Bluesky will be blocking almost everyone in it.
I've no interest in it either way, given that Bluesky is the toxic liberalism site in the same way that X the Everything App is the toxic reactionary site.
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@esoteric_programmer @alter_kaker @mcc as I understand it the cost of a relay has gone down because you can run it without keeping full account of the message history for all time and instead restrict what you have to a time-window.
Raises the question of whether that's good enough if we want real alternatives to the official company infra though.
@ikuturso @esoteric_programmer @alter_kaker @mcc that $34/month is enough for 2 hours per the article
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@mcc what exactly is the benefit of migrating to a non bluesky PDS? I understand being on an entirely different vertical stack like Blacksky or Northsky but what does being on a PDS give you? Aren't you still (almost) entirely at bluesky's mercy?
@eniko the advantage is the data is yours and you can recover it later if Bluesky goes berserk. This is a mild advantage but in keeping with the mild advantages operating a PDS is also a mild imposition. It's practically a git repo with a weird frontend. I'm not saying self host but if people are starting to host alternate bluesky bits, this is the most likely thing for someone to alternate host (because it is the least demanding thing) so it's the most likely option to appear.
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@lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer This moves into a lot of stuff about distributed identity that I don't get. But certainly the Fediverse has the same problem. Ultimately the credible exit is waving goodbye to your history, somehow letting your followers know you've got a new handle, and hoping they update their contacts. That sounds hard, but it's still a fairly credible exit, since your followers don't have to move too.
@mat @lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer the pds/storage can change because the identity is a separate layer. the authority is a DID (most likely did:plc but did:web is also supported). the DID document points to your current PDS. this allows the pds to change as long as the did stays the same.
example: you are did:plc:whatever, and your pds is shiitake.example, but you migrate your data from shiitake to puffball. the did document updates the service pointer: https://web.plc.directory/did/did:plc:ewvi7nxzyoun6zhxrhs64oiz
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I (me, mcc) never trusted Bluesky, so I've been self-hosting my own PDS from the start. I've been happily using blacksky.community for the last month (since Bluesky started gating access to their appview/web frontend on clicking to agree to a new TOS that seemed to me sketchy). Hypothetically, "Gertrude" could do the same. She can join Northsky PDS, make posts through Zeppelin, and Bluesky blocks her but Blacksky just fetches the posts from her PDS for me, and I get to read them.
Right? (2/3)
@mcc how hard is it to set up your own PDS?
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@eniko the advantage is the data is yours and you can recover it later if Bluesky goes berserk. This is a mild advantage but in keeping with the mild advantages operating a PDS is also a mild imposition. It's practically a git repo with a weird frontend. I'm not saying self host but if people are starting to host alternate bluesky bits, this is the most likely thing for someone to alternate host (because it is the least demanding thing) so it's the most likely option to appear.
@eniko In a world where Mastodon/ActivityPub doesn't exist, having the PDS would be a cool opportunity because if you ever do bug out from bluesky, instead of having to find someone replicating that giant teetering ATProto stack you could bridge to, or create, some kind of alternative system. But in this actual world this feels pointless since the alternative systems (like ActivityPub) that exist already are more capable to begin with, so why not just make the posts there to begin with.
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@mcc how hard is it to set up your own PDS?
@tylercook like, absurdly easy. Do you know Docker or any Docker-like system?
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@jrose @mcc Even the portability being better is somewhat theoretical right now because if your identity is using did:plc then you are unable to move away from did:plc and Bluesky PBC has custody of your keys... And also like people have noticed hosting your own data in a PDS does not really make you independent from their actions so the point of doing it is somewhat unclear.
@ikuturso @jrose @mcc yeah, unfortunately bluesky has zero interest in supporting did migrations. they only support changing your dns handle
EDIT: source https://bsky.app/profile/bnewbold.net/post/3lchpwc2hws2r
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@eniko In a world where Mastodon/ActivityPub doesn't exist, having the PDS would be a cool opportunity because if you ever do bug out from bluesky, instead of having to find someone replicating that giant teetering ATProto stack you could bridge to, or create, some kind of alternative system. But in this actual world this feels pointless since the alternative systems (like ActivityPub) that exist already are more capable to begin with, so why not just make the posts there to begin with.
@eniko I think M Kasprzak actually has a fork of the official Bluesky PDS, right now, that also publishes to ActivityPub. I think Wafrn can do that too. So that would be an example of "bridging" like I mean— you could start syndicating your bluesky posts to Fediverse, and if you ever bug out from Bluesky just disconnect those endpoints and now you've just got a fediverse server. But this scenario assumes you weren't already more established and comfortable on Fediverse than Bluesky to start with
