this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Technology

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[–] cygnus 98 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I stopped reading when the "journalist" asked this question:

How did you end up starting a decentralized social platform?

How little research must one do to credulously repeat that PR talking point for a platform that is in fact completely centralized?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I stopped at the bit about revolutionizing communication online. That revolution happened over a decade ago with the rise of social media. More social media is just more, not new.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Decentralisation via activitypub is the next revolution

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

or possibly something else, but definetly not atproto as it stands

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

Yall are so annoying. Bluesky is 2 years old. Mastodon is like 8 years old. Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.

Yall have such a hate boner you dont even do research. No wonder normies will never use mastodon or lemmy yall are insufferable and mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features

Edit: to anyone curious about keeping up with bluesky’s progress in decentralization and all the other stuff theyre working on here’s a good blog https://fediversereport.com/

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We don't have a hate boner. We see "decentralized" being thrown around like a buzzword and we know that it really doesn't apply to their platform.

It's like the Libertarian Party taking the word "libertarian" and flipping the meaning to describe their ideology.

It's a distortion of the spirit of the word and actual libertarians obviously want to clear up the misunderstandings that result from being introduced to the concept of libertarianism through such a group.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

...mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features

What new features does Bluesky have...?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

Being a centralized decentralized platform of course. Very innovative.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Someone clearly has never used context menus or opened their account settings in Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Reddit is now decentralized, I just set up nginx to cache it🤡

Oh wait, PDS' don't even cache lol

[–] cygnus 17 points 2 months ago

Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.

Oh yeah? I can join that second server right now and communicate with folks on the main server?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Do you have a link to the raspi instance?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Bluesky’s model is built in a way that means it won’t ever be decentralized. There are plenty of articles about it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Do you have a link to people talking about running a relay on a raspberry pi? I find it hard to believe that's possible. A PDS, sure, but a relay requires multiple terabytes of storage alone and plenty of bandwidth/CPU/RAM that I just don't see a raspberry pi being able to support.

I'd be curious to hear about any progress on setting up new relays though.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I think that it's fair to want the interviewer to ask more critical questions and in general be more precise with their phrasing but

repeat that PR talking point

is a very cynical and uncharitable take on bluesky and decentralization. Cynical takes aren't necessarily wrong but they're not necessarily correct either.

The AT protocol is by its own account an ongoing project with problems that still need be solved before it is able to provide a social network with all the properties that they're interested in.

I don't think that it's accurate to say that bluesky is "completely" centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it's de-facto centralized. One reason for this is that it's prohibitively expensive to self-host relays. This is something that the AT protocol devs have plans for addressing, so it's possible that this de-facto centralization is a temporary stage in the evolution of bluesky and AT proto.

It is of course possible that they are lying or that they will be unsuccessful despite best intentions but taking for granted that it's just a "PR talking point" is, once again, very cynical in a way that I don't think is completely motivated.

[–] cygnus 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized.

That's like me calling myself a millionaire because I could theoretically be one at some point in the future. I am de facto not a millionaire, but I also have more than zero dollars. so I'm not completely a non-millionaire.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Let's see here... ahh yes, it's a company run by a board with a CEO based in Amerikkka. Who gives a shit if it's non-profit or not, the users are not in control. No thanks.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's also very much not non-profit.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You're right, I guess the original thing by Jack Dorsey (Bluesky Protocol) was non-profit, but since becoming its own entity it is for-profit now. I conflated the two.

They consider themselves a Benefit Corporation, which I just learned is likely for-profit pretending to be socially aware.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Yeah I think "benefit company" is the most bullshit thing ever invented

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

What I don't get is why anyone would ever choose commercial social media again given there are Activity Pub clones for practically everything now, where you aren't the product. So many people learned nothing from the ongoing Twitter debacle and the zillion Facebook privacy scandals apparently.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Try using Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time. Bluesky is a twitter clone and perfect replacement. Mastodon is an excellent micro-blogging platform, but has none of the features people actually liked about twitter. People love recommendation algorithms and quote tweet dunking. That's the core of what it's all about. Mastodon is glorified RSS, which is great if you miss those days.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Perhaps open federated systems should have recommendation algos too, just optional and open

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

It would be cool to download different algorithms people created to see how it feeds

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Follow a few interesting hashtags and you have your recommendation algorithm, but one you're in control of.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you seen the average person recently? They like to be spoon-fed content in a passive way. Look at Instagram Reels or TikTok.

Mastodon is fine for geeks like us, but the average Joe would find it dead and boring. Bluesky managed to fill that hole left by Twitter.

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[–] 60d 7 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Is Activity Pub integrated into Lemmy yet?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I thought it was built on activity pub.

I'm gonna go over to my Mastodon account and try to reply to you. One sec.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (6 children)

@60d @heavyboots It is supposed to be but I'm not seeing any mastodon replies showing up on Lemmy yet so I thought I'd give it a try. The fact that I can see your reply from mastodon and reply to it proves something 🤔

[–] 60d 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Cool! Yea I'm not on Mastodon. Replying on Lemmy via Voyager.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@60d Nice, so it definitely works but there is quite a delay so not perfect. But here I am replying again from mastodon after checking that it did finally show up on Lemmy!

[–] 60d 5 points 2 months ago

The delay is real, lol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Wow, the delay is real LOL I replied from Mastodon but it hasn't shown up here so I'm replying from vger.app and will see what gets here from where and when :-D It's cool that it's possible though, even if it's not super practical.

EDIT to say that this comment showed up on Mastodon basically immediately but my Mastodon comment still hasn't shown up here 1-2 hours later?! Weird??

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@60d @heavyboots
Kinda? This is @andrewrgross tooting at you from Mastodon, but I had to search for your address to find this comment. And I couldn't find it from a different server. So... yes, but actually no.

Still, I find it fascinating the degree that they're connected. I'm gonna go see if this showed up on Lemmy now.

[–] 60d 4 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Your toot is here. Can you see my reply in Mastodon?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Fediverse software tends to be kind of hostile to convenience features people have grown accustomed to. Recommendation algorithms, for example. Lemmy is on the cutting edge for having a "Hot" sort.

I know Mastodon has historically been pretty hostile to even more basic things like being able to search posts.

I get why they think like that, and I honestly agree with some of it, but it inevitably creates a culture shock for outsiders coming from corpo media. I think that plus the network effect means the fediverse will always be kind of niche.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago

All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.

... but probably not.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Decentralized app plotting a total takeover of the social internet? Are these tryouts for the mental gymnastics invitational?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The mental gymnasics part is the claim that Bluesky is decentralized.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

this is potentially the last social identity you have to create.

..as long as you stay centralized on the central BlueSky instance. Once you move out to a (potential, future) federated server, that identity (and it's super duper verification) doesn't follow you.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

"What are we doing today, Jay?"

"The same thing we're doing every day, Kate. Trying to take over the social internet!"

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

The fediverse will still be here when bluesky is killed by VCs

[–] ininewcrow 13 points 2 months ago

Are they building an army with troops, tanks, aircraft and naval ships? Are they going to physically and violently take over the social internet?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

"Today, social media, tomorrow the world! Muahahahaha!"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Normies will be using weibo before they use Mastodon

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Oh no, the twitter people going back to twitter after sold them out. This will end in tears.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Now if only I could get a meaningful reply to a bug preventing complete account deletion, either on github or from support. It seems they modeled their support structure on Google's.

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