With ActivityPub, you can make the decentralized version of Twitter, or the decentralized version of YouTube, or the decentralized version of BlueSky

blaine

@stefan @cwebber @pluralistic but there was a ton of stuff that happened to make HTTP a viable transport for AP. And that's just the base layer; lots of other tech may or may not have been "optimal."

The biggest challenges AP overcame were social, and that's down to the hard work of the AP standards crew, Eugen, and loads of others who pushed things forward. Same with Jay & co. (Assuming they ship federation )

Kudos all around!

blaine

@stefan @cwebber @pluralistic maybe I'm naive but I honestly can't see how atproto isn't AP compatible with a user-invisible translation layer. It might not be *pretty*, but ultimately it's about the social aspects, right? The only reason it *wouldn't* work is if people make a decision to moderate/block content based on its source technology. Right?

Brian Swetland

@cwebber I just remain mildly annoyed at the touting of ATproto/Bluesky as "decentralized" while there's really only one viable implementation people use that's run by a VC backed corporate entity.

Similar to the "there is no portable software, only ported software" outlook on things, until there are fully-stood-up independent instances that average non-technical users can successfully migrate to, it's all theoretical at best.

Laurens Hof

@cwebber @stefan

Out of curiosity: what are your criteria for when you feel comfortable saying that Bluesky has achieved decentralisation?

diego

https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy

6. C

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Stefan Bohacek

@diego @laurenshof Good find!

damon

@cwebber Are you able to link to your previous works that addresses some of the points you make in this thread? Also, I’d be very shocked if your fair and valid criticisms burned bridges. You come across as fair, honest and open not looking to harm. It’s not harsh like some of the ATProto team have found many of Evan’s remakes to be. Thus, I’d think they’d take your criticisms in good faith and be open to collaborating which only benefits the open social web. Your thread and approach is what’s needed in terms of how to handle these situations.

Oblomov

@swetland @cwebber

I'm more than mildly annoyed by that so I wrote a long rant about it

A credible threat to (and from) commercial social network silos/2

The Fediverse, especially through Mastodon, has been acknowledged by the major players as a threat —to be eliminated.

wok (wok.oblomov.eu)

Ironically (but unsurprisingly), the only thing that has put the BS claims of decentralization to test in any way has been … the Fediverse bridge.

Oblomov

@cwebber I would really like to read such an analysis, FWIW.

Concerning the efforts to since the technical challenges, I recently found out that there's also an ongoing effort to merge some of Zot's feature into AP (https://wedistribute.org/2024/03/activitypub-nomadic-identity/) and it's interesting to see how different this is from your approach.

Ultimately my hope is that BS looming will help prioritize these challenges, in whichever way they get solved.

bryan newbold

@cwebber @stefan
for what it is worth, have always found your writing and critique on all this very insightful and productive!

Christine Lemmer-Webber

@bnewbold @stefan

I've wanted to write up a "critique document" of both "present day ActivityPub" and ATproto but wasn't sure how they'd be received. I think knowing you'd be interested makes me feel pretty positive about it

I do think that @blaine is right in that there's shall we say a "fixed point of convergence" if things were to work right, and so maybe that's the right way to frame things around

Jon

I for one would also love to read it! Although not sure if that makes you feel more or less positive ...

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