1mo ago

Christine Lemmer-Webber, co-author of ActivityPub, on BlueSky

“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”.

Source: https://oko.press/ucieczka-z-twittera-przyszlosc-mediow-spolecznosciowych

15 comments

bluesky will eventually enshitify like reddit and twitter did and like all social media platforms with investors/financiers behind them always do. (reddit in particular promised not to enshitify at the beginning just like bluesky is promising right now).
be ready to find a new social platform like you had to do with reddit in another 4 to 9 years if you go with bluesky.
even bluesky's original creator already left bluesky because of the enshitification and helped develop nostr instead to compete with it.
(copy/pasted)
- Guys I'm starting to think these corporations are just in it for the money, and that the money is fundamentally at odds with the user experience.
  
  What?! Noooooooooo... Name one time that's happened!
  
  Now can you convince the masses?
- Nostr has existed long before, and Dorsey left because he's a crybaby who's unhappy with moderation existing

@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.
- 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?
  
  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.
- @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.
- It is more decentralized than this platform.
  The person on a mastodon instance says while commenting on a lemmy instance that I am reading from a different lemmy instance that I own.
- of course it is a qotoer
- BS is really decentralized. You only need some 5 TB storage to run a relay and there is no other AppView besides the one run by Bluesky ro bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

15 comments