"How decentralized is Bluesky really?" by Christine Lemmer-Webber

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 15 days ago

[…] it doesn’t remove admins from the equation and users still have to choose an instance to be associated with […]

I think that’s a fair point! At any rate, I do agree with you in that I think that users should be completely portable for a truly sustainable federated service.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 17 days ago

It could be done without having to clone all data though. Reddit is hosted by AWS and their data is distributed on multiple servers, so replace AWS by a bunch of people like you and me providing disk space for the data and tada, you can decentralized the database and just give people access to interacting with it directly (through code) or via various front-ends that people would create. […]

If I understand you correctly, there is an open issue for Lemmy for an, I think, similar idea of co-hosting communities.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 18 days ago

[…] they’re always using the same credentials no matter the website they use and no matter the website they can interact with everything that ever happened on the servers, no one has the power to prevent users from seeing some of the transactions that happened (no admins) because the website they use are just a front used to simplify interaction with the servers. […]

Hm, IIUC, this is one of Bluesky’s issues that the linked blog post was pointing out — if joining the network requires one to mirror all existing data, it makes it prohibitively expensive for anyone to spin up a server to join the network if the size of the network is enormous.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 18 days ago

If things were decentralized in similar way to crypto it would be way better for user adoption.

IIUC, are you perhaps referring to something like Nostr?

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 18 days ago

🐻 “it’s not. it’s not. it’s not. …”

/j

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 18 days ago

Oh damn, that’s a lot of cross-posts. I didn’t know this had already been posted so many times before.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 18 days ago

"How decentralized is Bluesky really?" by Christine Lemmer-Webber

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

Interesting — I hadn’t considered it that way.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

I take the issue of misinformation seriously. I try to be the change that I wish to see.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 21 days ago

Dang 😕. See my comment for a related response.

I recommend reporting the bug to the Sync devs to fix their Markdown formatting to improve feature compatibility between them and the Lemmy UI.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

I wish Boost understood the collapsible spoilers.

On my client, it’s all expanded and I see all the formatting characters.

Ah dang, that’s good to know (though I’m not sure what to do as an alternative) — I was unaware that the collapsible spoilers weren’t supported on Boost. I guess that means that Lemmy’s markdown formatting hasn’t entirely been standardized across the service. I personally have encountered some inconsistency on the Tesseract UI with CommonMark Autolink ^[2] formatting where the autolinks don’t even render ^[1].

I recommend reporting this to the Boost devs to improve Markdown feature compatibility between them and the Lemmy UI.

References

“Kalcifer” @Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works. To: [“Happy #GlobalSwitchDay”. @squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de. “Fediverse” !fediverse@lemmy.world. Tesseract. sh.itjust.works. Published: 2025-02-01T07:08:40Z. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:40Z. https://tesh.itjust.works/post/sh.itjust.works/32046509.]. Published: 2025-02-01T09:20:14Z. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:42Z. https://sh.itjust.works/post/32046509/16425699.

Raw Text:

Signal isn't federated ^[1][2][3.1]^; it's decentralized ^[1][2][3.2]^. Though, for all practical purposes, I would generally argue that it's centralized. 

::: spoiler References
1. Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. <https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server>.
   - This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
2. "Signal (software)". Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-06T09:34Z. Accessed: 2025-02-1T09:30Z. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)>.
   - ¶"Architecture". ¶"Servers".
     > Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal's messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users' public keys. […]
3. "Reflections: The ecosystem is moving". moxie0. Signal Blog. Published: 2016-05-10. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:40Z.  <https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/>.
   1. ¶5. to ¶"Stuck in time". ¶3-6
      > One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all. […] [interoperable protocols] [have] taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. […] Early on, I thought we’d federate Signal once its velocity had subsided. Now I realize that things will probably never slow down, and if anything the velocity of the entire landscape seems to be steadily increasing.
   2. ¶"Stuck in time". "Federation and control". ¶6.
      > An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.
:::

Rendered:

In the rendered text there are no links; however, there should be links at the end, as is shown by the CommonMark autolinks in the raw text.

“CommonMark Spec”. John MacFarlane. CommonMark. Version: 0.31.2. Published: 2024-01-28. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:51Z. https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#uri-autolink.
- §6.5 “Autolinks”. ¶2.
  
  A URI autolink consists of <, followed by an absolute URI followed by >. It is parsed as a link to the URI, with the URI as the link’s label.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 21 days ago

Based.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 21 days ago

I do my best to cite any claim that I make. I would encourage others to do the same.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 21 days ago

Matrix is […] distributed […].

It is? How so?

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

Decentralization 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

Imo this fits my usage of the term — Signal can be broken up into many isolated servers ^[1] all offering the same service.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

That’s just open source, not decentralized.

Depending on exactly how said open source development is occuring, I could argue that open source development is an example of decentralization. It may even be an example of federation (all depending on licensing and development medium imo).

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

it’s decentralized

No it’s not. From literally your own comment:

Signal relies on centralized servers

I was using “decentralized” to mean that there isn’t centralized control over ownership of the service in general — eg anyone can spin up their own server (impractical, imo, pushing it more towards being centralized) and people can use it (making it decentralized, imo (Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do think my usage of the term is appropriate in this way.)), but people who use that server can only communicate with that server (making it not federated). But yes it could still be said to be centralized in that it operates on a client-server model ^[1].

This is more an argument of definitions, though. I’m not trying to claim anything in bad faith.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · 21 days ago

My comment wasn’t protesting the use of Signal; it was rather clarifying the misinformation in OP’s post — ie misinformation that Signal is a federated service.

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works · edit-2 21 days ago

Signal isn’t federated ^[1][2][3.1]; it’s decentralized ^[1][2][3.2]. Though, for all practical purposes, I would generally argue that it’s centralized.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
“Signal (software)”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-06T09:34Z. Accessed: 2025-02-1T09:30Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software).
- ¶“Architecture”. ¶“Servers”.
  
  Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal’s messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users’ public keys. […]
“Reflections: The ecosystem is moving”. moxie0. Signal Blog. Published: 2016-05-10. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:40Z. https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/.
1. ¶5. to ¶“Stuck in time”. ¶3-6
  
  One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all. […] [interoperable protocols] [have] taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. […] Early on, I thought we’d federate Signal once its velocity had subsided. Now I realize that things will probably never slow down, and if anything the velocity of the entire landscape seems to be steadily increasing.
2. ¶“Stuck in time”. “Federation and control”. ¶6.
  
  An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.