How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
dustycloud.org

This is a pretty great, long form post about the structure of Bluesky, and how it’s largely kinda pretending to be decentralized at the moment. I’m not trying to make a dig at it. I’ve enjoyed the platform myself for a while, but it’s good to learn more about how it actually works.

This article was shared on Mastodon via its author here.

  • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    241·
    23 hours ago

    Presently? Hardly at all. It is interesting that a private Corp is even seriously playing with building a decentralized platform, I guess.

    The files are out there to host your own server but from the short look I took it’s pretty involved. Most people with the knowledge and interest to host their own twitter-like server have probably already started a mastodon instance.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      It reminds me of what Google tried to do initially with Google+. They copied Diaspora’s concept of aspects, calling them “circles”. Over time, though, using the circles became more and more janky until they removed them entirely. Then, of course, Google+ got shuttered completely over security issues.

      Likewise, “federation” and “decentralization” are the new hotness in social networks, so here’s a big corporation looking to cash in on that. Of course, real decentralization would take too much power away from the corporation, so they have to half-ass it somehow.