Bluesky is more open than you think.
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~99.96% of all Bluesky users and content is on Bluesky servers.
Bluesky is decentralised in theory, but in reality it is not. Until one entity doesn't own over 90% of the users and content, I really can't see how it can be seen as decentralised.
It's not a matter of how many users, but whether those users have the option to switch servers. By the former standard, mastodon would be considered centralized simply because of mastodon.social.
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It's not a matter of how many users, but whether those users have the option to switch servers. By the former standard, mastodon would be considered centralized simply because of mastodon.social.
In theory Bluesky users have the option to switch, but in practice they don't
36 Million users can't just switch to other servers only catering for ~15,000 users.mastodon.social has ~30% of the active users, which is a lot, but if it went down Mastodon would continue working for most users.
You can't compare the 99.96% market share Bluesky has with that.
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There are only 15,000 out of 36 Million users that are on servers not owned by Bluesky.
99.96% of users being on one instance isn't Decentralised even if the technology supports it in theory.
If 99.96% of users were on lemmy.world, I wouldn't call lemmy decentralised even if the technology allows it in theory.🧮 Decentralization Scoring System (v1.3)
Breakdown (Estimates)Platform Score Visualization 
Email95 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 
Lemmy79 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 
Mastodon74 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟣 PeerTube 94 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 
Pixelfed42 🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧 
Bluesky14 🟥🟥🟥 🟥 Reddit 3 🟥 Define decentralised.
As per RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards,[...] "centralization" is the state of affairs where a single entity or a small group of them can observe, capture, control, or extract rent from the operation or use of an Internet function exclusively.
[Decentralization is when] "complete reliance upon a single point is not always required" (citing Baran, 1964)
[...] federation, i.e., designing a function in a way that uses independent instances that maintain connectivity and interoperability to provide a single cohesive service.
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It's not a matter of how many users, but whether those users have the option to switch servers. By the former standard, mastodon would be considered centralized simply because of mastodon.social.
PDS migration works way better on atproto, and objects are portable, unlike on AP.
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Is there any way to connect the bsky android app to the atproto.africa relay or a third party appview that uses the atproto.africa relay? I wouldn't mind using bsky more if there was a clone of the android app that doesn't use the bsky relay/appview. Looking at whtwnd it appears to be just web and not native apps?
I would like to host my own PDS and access bsky through a native app using third party relay+appview, but I haven't seen a way to do this yet.
Actually, take a look at AppViewLite, it lets you skip relays and crawl PDSes directly. Its fairly lightweight as well, so you could host it alongside a PDS.
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PDS migration works way better on atproto, and objects are portable, unlike on AP.
@irelephant
Genuine question, then: why is hardly anybody hosting their own Bluesky server? -
Define decentralised.
As per RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards,[...] "centralization" is the state of affairs where a single entity or a small group of them can observe, capture, control, or extract rent from the operation or use of an Internet function exclusively.
[Decentralization is when] "complete reliance upon a single point is not always required" (citing Baran, 1964)
[...] federation, i.e., designing a function in a way that uses independent instances that maintain connectivity and interoperability to provide a single cohesive service.
Top Provider User Share: bsky.social ≈ 99% → Score: 0/30
Top Provider Content Share: Nearly all content on bsky.social → Score: 0/30
Self-Hosting: Server: PDS hosting possible but very niche and poorly documented → Score: 4/20
Self-Hosting: Client: Mostly official client; some 3rd party → Score: 10/20Total: 14/100
Interesting score
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I agree with you there.
I wish they put a bit more effort into getting people onto independant servers.
They took to opposite approch of mastodon: they abandoned proper distribution for better growth.In any case, ActivityPub and atproto can both coexist.
No I think even if they did that I wouldnt trust it. The protocol is 100% controlled by a profit seeking company. That means it will 100% turn into a platform that tries to monitize its users for all theyre worth. Public benefit corporation is a meme and has no actual restrictions.
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Top Provider User Share: bsky.social ≈ 99% → Score: 0/30
Top Provider Content Share: Nearly all content on bsky.social → Score: 0/30
Self-Hosting: Server: PDS hosting possible but very niche and poorly documented → Score: 4/20
Self-Hosting: Client: Mostly official client; some 3rd party → Score: 10/20Total: 14/100
Interesting score
The scoring system isn't perfect, and is subjective, but it's a good starting point to try and measure if something is decentralised.
I forsee a lot of big companies pretending to be Open-Source and decentralised because it's good for profits. Just like they pretend to care about Gay rights etc. When it suites them
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In theory Bluesky users have the option to switch, but in practice they don't
36 Million users can't just switch to other servers only catering for ~15,000 users.mastodon.social has ~30% of the active users, which is a lot, but if it went down Mastodon would continue working for most users.
You can't compare the 99.96% market share Bluesky has with that.
Looking at your other comment on this thread, thank you - that kind of breakdown was precisely what I was hoping to see!:-)
So Bluesky is more decentralized than Reddit (or Facebook), but barely, and far less so than any Fediverse platform currently.
I think what OP was trying to convey was less the current state of affairs and more the underlying protocol itself, which they re-released now under a separate post.
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Define decentralised.
As per RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards,[...] "centralization" is the state of affairs where a single entity or a small group of them can observe, capture, control, or extract rent from the operation or use of an Internet function exclusively.
[Decentralization is when] "complete reliance upon a single point is not always required" (citing Baran, 1964)
[...] federation, i.e., designing a function in a way that uses independent instances that maintain connectivity and interoperability to provide a single cohesive service.
I like the wiki definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it.Based on this and other definitions I've seen, Bluesky is NOT decentralised.
I struggle to see how a platform of which 99.96% of it's users are controlled by one entity is Decentralised.
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@irelephant
Genuine question, then: why is hardly anybody hosting their own Bluesky server?Because all the nerds who want to do that are on mastodon ; ).
Jokes aside, people are self hosting them, there's about 2000 independant PDSes right now.
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Because all the nerds who want to do that are on mastodon ; ).
Jokes aside, people are self hosting them, there's about 2000 independant PDSes right now.
The person probably meant relays, which are not as popular
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Looking at your other comment on this thread, thank you - that kind of breakdown was precisely what I was hoping to see!:-)
So Bluesky is more decentralized than Reddit (or Facebook), but barely, and far less so than any Fediverse platform currently.
I think what OP was trying to convey was less the current state of affairs and more the underlying protocol itself, which they re-released now under a separate post.
The underlying protocol doesn't get you very far when 99.96% of users are on one instance.
If Bluesky decides do defederate with everyone they keep all the users and content and all the control.
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The person probably meant relays, which are not as popular
Oh.
Well, as of now, there's little incentive to host one.
AppViewLite lets you use the network without a relay, which I think is cool. -
The underlying protocol doesn't get you very far when 99.96% of users are on one instance.
If Bluesky decides do defederate with everyone they keep all the users and content and all the control.
Bluesky is decentralised in theory, but in reality it is not.
I loved how you phrased it here:-).
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Oh.
Well, as of now, there's little incentive to host one.
AppViewLite lets you use the network without a relay, which I think is cool.Except being independent from the one company that hosts 99% of the network?
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Except being independent from the one company that hosts 99% of the network?
Annoyingly, most people aren't interested in that.
Also: I found this list: https://github.com/mary-ext/atproto-scrapingThere's a good few more PDSes than I thought. There's a few with open signups. Though, for relays the situation is a bit more bleak.
I'm sure it will improve in future, there is a lot of orgs planning on setting up AT infrastructure. -
That's at a very different level. With dot social it's about a quarter of the active users on the fediverse, whereas bluesky is probably something like 95% centralized in practice. It seems to keep improving, but right now it's basically impossible to use without mostly interacting with bsky.
99.96% actually.
Bluesky is all but 100% centralised
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I hope I am not adding to the problem here as well. It seems that obviously Bluesky is neither fully centralized nor fully decentralized. Is there a statement about just how much of either it is?
Although that might be complicated - like someone could say that Lemmy is fairly centralized, bc if you block Lemmy.World then you lose half the users and perhaps half the communities (and PieFed even more so, with PieFed.social representing an even higher fraction of users and communities on it).
So there is a distinction between Bluesky the service as it currently is implemented and Bluesky the protocol, the former of which is fairly centralized but the latter is more expandable?
Decentralisation is not black and white, and depends on your defintion of the word.
At this point, the problem is that everyone is on bluesky's servers. There is little technical problems.
