Decentralization and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere
https://privacy.thenexus.today/decentralization-and-erasure-blacksky-bluesky-and-the-atmosphere-2/
There's been a lot of discussion about whether or not Bluesky and the ATmosphere (the ecosystem using the AT protocol) are decentralized. Blacksky runs three feed generators, a moderation service, and a work-in-progress personal data store (PDS) as well as providing a starter pack. And the vision for Blacksky "extends beyond any single platform".
That sounds pretty decentralized to me!
But as far as I can tell, nobody else in the discussion is talking about Blacksky as an actually-existing example of decentralization. What's with that?
The Appendix of Decentralization and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere is a roundup of various articles and posts on the question of whether or not Bluesky and the ATmosphere are decentralized and/or federated. There are lots of interesting perspectives here, including from @laurenshof on @fediversereport, @cyrus, @cwebber @bnewbold, @rysiek, @jonny, @possibledog, @oblomov, @rwg, and @Kye. Every single one of those posts was worth reading, and I really appreciate the time everybody's put into it.
That said, it's still very strange to me that as far as I can tell none of you mentioned what seems to me an actually-existing example of decentralization on Bluesky today.
> Blacksky could easily get their own up and running – by themselves, or working with some of the communities Fraser is already hosting.
The "easily" is doing a *lot* of work here. Roughly 16TiB of NVMe storage, based on available information – and growing fast.
This is not decentralized, the same way Google Search is not decentralized. Yes, one can spin up their own web search engine, but the cost is prohibitive.
Using multiple siloes is not decentralization.
@thenexusofprivacy and the thing is there is no reason for Bluesky and people promoting Bluesky to insist on using the term "decentralization."
Clearly, users don't care. And that's fine.
As many have written already, a fast-scaling alternative to Xitter is needed, and Bluesky provides it. Great! Godspeed!
What I do not understand, what is truly beyond me, is why the insistence on calling "decentralized" something that decentralized (in all the important, power-dynamics-ways) is not.
@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I think what a lot of people may be getting hung up on is that ATproto is decentralized, but the thing Bluesky uses it for is not. Very similar overlap to how ActivityPub is decentralized, but Mastodon is a network of centralized instances that federate. What you see as a Mastodon user is all pushed to you from a central point, and is therefore "centralized," in basically exactly the same way that Bluesky's ATProto aggregator is. It's just that Mastodon currently has more than one of those while Bluesky does not
@nyquildotorg the problem with this is that if one Mastodon instance dies, the rest of the Fediverse continues to happily federate.
If one Bluesky relay dies, as it had in the past, the whole of Bluesky is dead in the water, as it had in the past. Along with all the other AppViews that use it.
There is a single point of control and failure in the center of the whole Bluesky social network, in a way that there is no such single central point of control and failure in fedi.
@nyquildotorg and again, this is an architectural choice that is understandable in the context of what Bluesky's team set out to build. And no, it is not fixable by, say, running more relays, as that's just not how the ATproto system works.
And that's fine and if people want to use it, great, go for it. Moving from Xitter to Bluesky is definitely a good step to take.
But decentralized Bluesky is not, in ways that the Fediverse actually is.
@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy my only point is that "decentralized" means a lot of different things.
If your mastodon instance goes down, you're dead in the water, too, unless you planned ahead with recent backups, and even then you're going to lose followers.
Even the in-depth architectural apologists aren't calling Bluesky "decentralized," in their big "this is how ATProto actually works" posts, they're calling ATProto that, and they're not any more wrong than the people who say Mastodon is.
Indeed there is only one ATProto "instance" currently, but that was once true of ActivityPub too. I don't have a horse in this fight, and I'm not interested in Bluesky no matter what changes they make; I'm just pointing out that a lot of people are creating their own debate here based on how other people are interpreting "decentralized."
@nyquildotorg my point is that words have meaning. "Decentralized" has meaning. And Bluesky-the-social-network simply does not meet the criteria to be called that.
If my Mastodon instance goes down, I can set up an account on another one, and reconnect with folks. A bit frustrating, but doable.
If Bluesky's Relay goes down, it doesn't matter which PDS I am on, that social network is dead.
ATproto might be decentralized on the PDS level, but it is not on the relay level.
@nyquildotorg the problem with making analogies between fedi instances and ATproto instances is that these do not map one to another. I don't know what you mean when you say "ATproto instance."
Do you mean "a PDS"? Then there are many of them already.
Do you mean "an actually functional, usable service" the way a single Mastodon instance is? Then you have to include the Relay in that, but additional relays will not make Bluesky any more decentralized than it is.
@nyquildotorg my "skin in the game" is that we cannot communicate effectively, if we allow terms to be diluted to a point of meaninglessness.
If we want to call Bluesky-the-social-network "decentralized" because some layer of ATproto features it to some extent (namely, PDSes), then we'd have to call Google Search decentralized because we can still self-host websites.
Problem is, a PDS is less directly useful to a person without a Relay than a website is without Google.
@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I think in a way we're saying the same thing, kind of.
I've really struggled the last couple years with the descriptive nature of language, how words evolve the way people use them, making the popular usage of them "correct" despite it absolutely being incorrect.
I guess I'm saying that "decentralized" has already become meaningless, and did well before Bluesky showed up, and that it having done so is actively contributing to debates like this one. But, like with "crypto," me shaking my fist at the sky just makes me feel bad, and — for me at least — it's probably healthier to just stop using it rather than getting mad at it repeatedly.
I'm sorry I chose your thread to finally join in on in order to work out this point. I wasn't trying to argue with you, and agree with your sentiment about diluting meaning. But, because I was having "wait a minute, this isn't really decentralized," discussions about the fediverse, on the fediverse, in 2017, seeing happen again with Bluesky has been interesting to see.
Again, sorry I sounded argumentative rather than trying to contribute to your argument. I'm trying to work on that lol.
@nyquildotorg all good, debate is what we're here for.
> I guess I'm saying that "decentralized" has already become meaningless
I don't believe this is the case. And even if it were, I don't believe we should agree to that. In fact, I strongly believe we need to fight for words to have meaning, to not be diluted and made meaningless. Otherwise we cannot have meaningful conversations.
I don't think decentralized is meaningless, I think it has different meanings and interpretations.
Does decentralized refer to network topology, power dynamics, or both?
If we're talking about network topology, does it matter if different nodes in the network are owned by different entities?
If an architecture is in principle decentralized, but the current implementation has one or ore single points of failure, is it in fact decentralized?
If one layer of the system is decentralized (web, PDSs) but power is heavily concentrated in another layer (search engines, relays) is it a decentralized network?
If we're talking about equitable distribution of power, what kinds of power are we talking about, and how equitable does it have to be to be considered decentralized?
etc etc etc
@thenexusofprivacy @rysiek where I keep getting hung up is "who controls my identity and content?"
On the fediverse, my identity and content are absolutely controlled by my instance, which makes that a huge obvious centralization point.
Sure I can "migrate" my identity, but that just causes (many of) my followers to automatically follow the new account, which comes with its own new identity. Now there are two identities out there. Unless my instance goes down, in which case I cannot "migrate" my identity.
But then, topologically speaking, even if I host my own instance on my own domain, I can't ever point that domain to a different instance without causing federation problems that require all the other instances on the fediverse to take action to get federation going again.
Those two things make my experience on the fediverse incredibly centralized.
@thenexusofprivacy @rysiek I do think "has different meanings and interpretations" makes "decentralized" unsuitable for debating whether or not the fediverse or Bluesky is decentralized; "many meanings" doesn't mean "no meaning", but I think it does when you're trying to use it to compare different aspects of different things with different people because it's almost impossible to be on the same page.
"Meaningless" is just shorthand for "no common ground to argue from."
@nyquildotorg whenever I see something like that claimed, I get suspicious. Who benefits from making such terms so blurry?
We've seen this time and again with "open source". Microsoft and others repeatedly tried to claim that licenses that do not meet basic criteria of being open-source are somehow "open-source".
We've seen this with encryption, for example in the context of Telegram. Telegram insists it is "encrypted", even though it very much is not.
@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I don't think anyone is "making" decentralized blurry, I think it's always been a poor marketing term applied to whatever people are trying to promote the usage of.
@nyquildotorg if it is such a poor marketing term, why are Bluesky developers defending it? Why can't they just say "sure, Bluesky is not decentralized, so what?"
Users would shrug anyway. So what gives?
Why are they investing so much time and effort into fighting for that hill?
I know why *I* am defending the stricter meaning of the term, and why *I* consider it important. But what is *their* motivation?
@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy well, two things:
1) Bluesky devs are defending "decentralized" with ATProto, not Bluesky.
2) they're just doing so on reply to high profile people on the fediverse claiming that what they're doing isn't decentralized.
Both sides have fallen into the trap I'm trying to illustrate: it's not a meaningful discussion because "decentralized" means different things to each side of the argument.
@nyquildotorg just to be clear: I am not claiming they are doing this maliciously and with premeditated ulterior motives.
But there surely is a reason why they invest time and effort into writing blogposts and taking part in conversations about Bluesky where they defend the claim that Bluesky is decentralized.
If it's such a bad marketing term, why do all that?