“Bluesky is called a decentralized network and uses the term federation. The problem is that their technology, from the point of view of power dynamics, is not decentralized at all,” emphasizes Christine Lemmer-Webber, an expert on decentralized social protocols. “The use of some decentralisation techniques, but the decentralized service itself is not today. There is one big company that controls the flow of information, and without which this network cannot operate at the moment.”
This does not mean that moving from X/Twitter to Bluesky is a bad idea. “I appreciate that Bluesky wants to build a service that can quickly fully replace Twitter. But I don’t think they should claim that this service is decentralized and instead focus on the date of a “trustworthy way”.
@sabreW4K3 Well that's a pretty nonsensical take.
The use of some decentralization techniques? It is decentralized because it uses decentralization techniques, and that's all there is to it. It is far more decentralized than this platform because of the techniques it uses. It focuses on users instead of centralizing around instances.
From the point of view of power dynamics? GTFO with that BS.
No, BlueSky is decentralized. It is more decentralized than this platform. These people are trying really really hard to bend things and find problems that don't really match reality.
And they need to be called out over it.
I really wish this platform was more decentralized, but that's not how the engineers designed it, and we need to call them out over it.
It would be like that except they don't run and control it. It is released into the wild.
@volkris@qoto.org @sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al that's just not true at all. Everyone has to use their appview and their relays to take part in it.
Sorry, I hate to be that guy, but since you’re dismissing the opinion of one of the people that designed the first decentralised social media protocol, I’m going to assume it’s because you’re better qualified to make the assessment. Can I ask, what are your qualifications?
@sabreW4K3 My qualification is that I've read the protocol documentation and seen the way it centralizes around instances?
trust me, bruh
BlueSky is decentralized. It is more decentralized than this platform.
Could you please elaborate on this, or point me to where I could read up more on this? It’s the first time I’ve seen this claim and would like to know more.
@wizardbeard I'm on my phone here, but maybe I can find some links when I get back to a computer.
Basically, under BlueSky the end user submits content to whatever distribution site or sites they want, and the person browsing retrieves content from whatever nodes they want, choosing between different algorithms as they wish, in contrast to the PubSub design where users submit content to an instance, and it all comes through a particular instance.
Like I said, this platform is centralized around instances while BlueSky avoids that, making everything between content posters and content readers decentralized.
@volkris@qoto.org @sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al there's absolutely more to being decentralized than just using "decentralization techniques". Those techniques just mean it could be decentralized in theory but isn't at all in practice. At least not for now.
It's like saying your service is "decentralized" even though you run and control it all because you use load-balancing with your web servers.