Why am I here and not on #Bluesky or #Threads?

Heath Stewart

@jwildeboer @pravee_n my understanding was that anyone *could* run a relay, but even their docs admit it’s a ton of bandwidth and implies there’s not much incentive to do so. So maybe they are practically running all the relays and that makes them practically centralized.

Still, it seems to solve for the problem of the Mastodon effect where sites are getting DOS’d by instances requesting data for thumbnails.

Personally, I see pros and cons. To each their own, though.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@heaths To identify yourself in the Bluesky network, you need an identifier. The layer that manages and provides these is the PLC. And, guess, who runs the only PLC that is used in the Bluesky network?@pravee_n

praveen

@jwildeboer @heaths Is it possible to tun alternative PLC?

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@pravee_n AFAICS no. @heaths

Heath Stewart

@jwildeboer @pravee_n looks like you can use the `did:web` method as described in https://atproto.com/specs/did#blessed-did-methods

To clarify: not trying to push anyone anywhere. This just seems like a great exploration of the protocol. I skimmed the docs earlier - I’m really liking the Labeler functionality - but this thread has convinced me to read more thoroughly.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@heaths @pravee_n No, you can’t. did:plc is primary. And where do you store the accepted did:web? Right. In the PLC layer that is owned/run by Bluesky. This is a pattern, BTW. Whatever *could* be decentralised at some point in the future „unfortunately“ right now is Bluesky operated.

Chasalin

@jwildeboer
Did you know you can host your own PDS (personal data service) for bsky?
That way you control quite a lot yourself.

But still, bsky is, like 'the rest' a bit of a black hole: money and bleats go in and, yeah, what comes out? And where does the money go?

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@chasalin Yes. But to work you still need a Relay, the PLC and the AppView. Self-hosting != federated or decentralised.

MidgePhoto

@raphael @jwildeboer
Is that all of them?

Raphael Lullis

@midgephoto @jwildeboer you can never be sure. The point is that any instance that is connected to the larger ones is easy to find and scrape even by the most primitive setups, so it makes little sense to claim that State-level Ators or Big Tech corps would have any trouble to map as much as they want out of it.