> However, I disagree with some of the analysis, and have a couple specific points to correct.

[cwebber@social.coop]

This latter version of scale down does come up in Bryan's article:

> A specific form of scale-down which is an important design goal is that folks building new applications (new Lexicons) can "start small", with server needs proportional to the size of their sub-network.

(cotd)

[cwebber@social.coop]

Strictly speaking, I agree, ATProto can scale down in this use case! For example, if you wanted to make a small specialized forum for collaborative storytelling, you could use ATProto for it, and that's true, you could do it

But is it the right choice?

[cwebber@social.coop]

In some ways we are talking about two different things here: extension of functionality (which you might want the same scale for) and having a smaller and more isolated community

But regardless

[cwebber@social.coop]

ATproto positions itself *specifically* as designed for not wanting to miss messages, and I talked previously about how ATProto's design requires a god's-eye view.

It's a bit strange of a choice when you say "let's run a smaller community"

[cwebber@social.coop]

Given that message passing systems handle small scale systems *beautifully*, and *still* allow for interactions with larger scale systems, it's a bit confusing to me *why* you'd choose ATProto for such use cases. What is the specific benefit you'd gain? Especially because it's actually lossier here

[cwebber@social.coop]

At any rate, there's a bit of conflation here. "It scales down" by saying "you can have an isolated community/use case that's oblivious to the rest of the system" is categorically distinct from "it scales down" in terms of "a small node can meaningfully participate with the larger system"

[cwebber@social.coop]

At any rate, the problem with "scaling down" is much clearer when it comes to the problem of "scaling wide".

Or let me put it a different way: ATProto *explodes in complexity* when you try to scale it towards meaningful decentralization

[cwebber@social.coop]

Yes that's right we're getting to the spicy part of this conversation. We did the warm-up, now it's time to talk about the real thing, whether or not decentralization in the way I believe people *think* that term means is reasonably possible with ATProto as it's currently designed

[cwebber@social.coop]

But before we do that, I need to stretch and run to the bathroom

So for those of you following along, if you found this, Secret Goblin #3, let me know: ""

Oops wait actually we gotta talk about that one for a sec there's a reason I left it in scare quotes

[cwebber@social.coop]

Why on earth is the textual descriptor for Unicode U+1F47A "JAPANESE GOBLIN", does anyone know?

It's a Tengu, right?

Despite being the only actually named "goblin" emoji, I feel awkward about this one because is it correct to call it a "JAPANESE GOBLIN" instead of just "TENGU"?!?!

I don't know!

[cwebber@social.coop]

If you have knowledge or OPINIONS about "", its name choice in unicode, or, for that matter, a white person just dropping it in the middle of a group chat WITHOUT putting it in quotes (I did tho), feel free to derail the comment thread

Otherwise it's time for a

=== STRETCH BREAK ===

[cwebber@social.coop]

I'm back. It's time to talk about it: does Bluesky/ATProto suffer a "quadratic explosion" as we move from centralization towards *meaningful* decentralization?

I claimed it did, but I was challenged on this. What did I mean? Am I right or wrong?

It's time to find out!

[cwebber@social.coop]

In the previous blogpost I said the following:

> If this sounds infeasible to do in our metaphorical domestic environment, that's because it is. A world of full self-hosting is not possible with Bluesky.

(cotd)

[cwebber@social.coop]

Decentralized ATProto is quadratic quote, cotd:

> In fact, it is worse than the storage requirements, because the message delivery requirements become quadratic at the scale of full decentralization: to send a message to one user is to send a message to all. Rather than writing one letter, a copy of that letter must be made and delivered to every person on earth.

[cwebber@social.coop]

This was probably the thing I got the hardest pushback on from a team member of Bluesky, that it is not quadratic as we scale towards decentralization.

Truth be told, I don't have a degree in CS. Most of what I know I learned from studying independently and community resources. Was I wrong?

[cwebber@social.coop]

Just as a quick aside, regarding that comment about "agency", maximizing the agency of everyone (and more importantly, minimizing subjection!) sits at the heart of my ethical framework https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/11-an-ethics-of-agency.html

So I don't disagree on that part, but that's an aside!

[cwebber@social.coop]

Now, I said I won't read replies until I am done summarizing things, and that's true, so maybe someone has gone out of their way and proven that I am wrong, that the claims in my article are factually incorrect and so on and so forth. I wouldn't know yet.

But... I don't think I'm wrong.

[cwebber@social.coop]

As said I'm very self-conscious about these things because I *don't* have formal CS training. But I do a lot of research and so I've tried to become knowledgeable about these things and this *seemed* like the correct analysis to me

Because of that, I turned to people who actually knew more than me

[cwebber@social.coop]

For one thing I derailed the entire Spritely morning standup by walking everyone through the scenario. I gave the story example, which I'll detail later.

But @dthompson didn't find the story helpful, too much narrative detail. "I need to work through this example independently." So he did.

[cwebber@social.coop]

@dthompson came back and laid it out in more formal terms and said I was right.

But I was still nervous, so I called up one of my old MIT AI Lab type friends and rambled about it to them on a call. What did they think?