Been reading up on the #BlueSky hype train. I am really confused.
They claim BlueSky is supposed to be "#open" and "#federated" but then why didn't they just join #Mastodon or contribute to #ActivityPub? Making a new app I can 100% understand but also making a brand new protocol? WHY?
I'm not sure how "open" BlueSky really is (their recent plans to monetize features are very #sus) but either way, BlueSky and its protocol feel like a gigantic Not Invented Here syndrome. 🙄
@Wuzzy there are extremely good answers to your question.
#BlueSky operates in a way that is fundamentally different from #ActivityPub, in ways that address many of the criticisms that users and developers have when they are using platforms like #Mastodon.
These differences are so fundamental that it's not like BlueSky developers could have just taken AP and offered some patches to improve it.
They made a brand new protocol because their approach differed so markedly from the AP approach.
People do debate over which approach is better, and people can have strong feelings about one approach being much better than the other, but the strength of those feelings just emphasizes how fundamentally different they are.
It's akin to gas versus electric cars. EV car makers couldn't just make small tweaks to existing gas engines; rather they had to go a completely different direction with the electric motor instead.
Well one easy example of an issue that BlueSky can handle better is account migration.
People using Fediverse rightly point out that moving between instances is clumsy, and that's because the underlying system is all built around instances, not users, so moving between instances is an afterthought that's clumsily tacked on.
BlueSky made different design choices that made users, not instances, the core piece. One implication of this is that the user has much more control of their posts, where they reside, and how they're addressed.
The two design approaches are upside down from each other, so whether you want an instance-oriented system or a user-oriented system determines which system is more in line with your needs.
@BeAware their system gives users much MORE control, not less, since users are at the center.
Users get more control over their content, more control over how it's distributed, and where they get content from, and how it's presented to them from different aggregation sources.
It sounds like you're really focused on domain names and user handles, but a huge part of the BlueSky approach is to not make such things so important in the first place.
In ActivityPub a user is defined by the instance, so that stuff matters a whole lot.
In BlueSky they specifically didn't want to do that sort of thing, making users more independent of instances in the first place
@volkris @Wuzzy no, what I WAS focusing on is the complete ability to see what you want to see and moderate that experience.
On mastodon as a user, you're limited to "blocking" specific users. Unless your admin defederates, there's no real way to block an entire instance. The "Block this domain" option is literally just a mute and the instance can still interact with the post, the user that blocked them just won't see it.
I was under the impression (wrongly) that if BlueSky is ONLY pointing pointing my domain to their servers, I wouldn't have the same level of control over OTHER USERS' content as I currently do on Mastodon. This seems to not be the case as I researched further, but I'm not 100% sure on the exact options I'd have because I haven't done it (yet).
That was my concern, sorry I didn't make it very clear before.
Ah, well then you might find this two second statement of their goals interesting. It's one of the things I'm really interested in since like you I find Mastodon a bit underdeveloped for shaping experience.
> As with Web search engines, users are free to select their aggregators. Feeds, App Views, and search indices can be provided by independent third parties, with requests routed by the PDS based on user configuration.
I know that's just the elevator pitch without details, but I remembered coming across it and figured I'd share the link.
@volkris @Wuzzy after more research, it seems they do allow "instances" to host on their own server...
https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds?tab=readme-ov-file
I wonder if I can use my main domain to test this with my mastodon instance staying on the subdomain🤔might be something to look into.
@BeAware @volkris Seems like federation exists on paper for now ("We do not currently support PDS federation on the production network").
I guess I just wait until this thing actually takes into effect. But I predict the network will be dominated by one large "official" server. Federation won't be enough. They would also need to actively advertise other servers to give them a fair chance. The idea of federation goes out of the window if >90% of all users are on one large instance.
We'll see …
@BeAware Well again, their approach is different from ActivityPub in that they don't emphasize the role of admins, making it about users first over and above instances.
Anyway, in theory they have released all of their software open source on git, if I recall correctly, so anybody is welcome to start their own system.
Of course, practicality is a different matter...
@volkris This explains it.
I remain skeptical because of stuff like their announcement they want to add paid-for features in the app which isn't realistically possible in free software in many cases. Makes me doubt their intentions.
Also, federation currently only exists on paper AFAIK. Too much centralized power atm.
But I admit, the technical thought process behind this is interesting.
I guess I just wait and see how it develops.
@volkris @Wuzzy but what ARE those fundamental differences and we're the "issues" actually issues? Like, they didn't think "it can't do ads, better make something new that can" and thought it was a good idea that people would adore, did they?🤷♂️it seems like AP, but shittier because it just uses your domain name and nothing else unless I am mistaken. They use your domain name, throw it on your profile, call it "defederated" and call it a day?