Comment by schwax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by schwax | Hacker News Reader

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IMO Bluesky (really atproto) is decentralized along the axes that matter, while Mastodon is decentralized along the axes that don't. It's sort of a figure-ground inversion in thinking about a social media protocol so I think a lot of the criticism is coming from people who haven't taken any time to understand it.

It's an open protocol, but more like the www than email. You can port your identity to another host at any time. You can self host if you want. You have complete control over how your chosen feed algorithm aggregates posts from the firehose. If you want to make a competing service to Bluesky you can even do that, and it will still interoperate with all the Bluesky users.

Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator you want mediating your experience. Mastodon is decentralized in the sense that it breaks the platform up into smaller fiefdoms; Bluesky is decentralized in the sense that you retain control over your own experience.

Some recommended reading on Bluesky/atproto:

https://bsky.app/profile/laurenshof.online/post/3la5j3qgqvo2...

https://fediversereport.com/a-conceptual-model-of-atproto-an...

https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers

https://atproto.com/guides/faq

> You can port your identity to another host at any time. You can self host if you want. You have complete control over how your chosen feed algorithm aggregates posts from the firehose. If you want to make a competing service to Bluesky you can even do that, and it will still interoperate with all the Bluesky users.

> Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator

Wait what? All of the benefits you mention for Bluesky apply equally to Mastodon (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right? What's the difference you're pointing out?

I was replying to a post claiming Bluesky is centralized, since it's not, really. Maybe I should have left Mastodon out of it :)

I think they're both good, but different tools for different jobs. Mastodon is good for tighter knit community. I think Bluesky has potential to be a decentralized replacement for social media with n >> dunbar's number.

The difference is in the protocol. Bluesky's atproto is IMO very clever and well designed. It's not every day I read something and think to myself, "I wish I'd thought of that!" I'd encourage anybody whose interest is piqued to dig in and read up.

> What's the difference you're pointing out?

They don't equally apply.

> (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right?

You can host things, sure, but atproto (this is really more about the protocol than the application layer) has true account portability, whereas Mastodon does not. Moving your account on Mastodon account has multiple options, all of which are closer to redirects: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/

This all also requires cooperation from your host; if you're kicked out, then you can't do any of this. A profile redirect only stays up as long as that host is up.

Whereas with atproto, you can move between PDSes, and nothing will change with regards to your social graph. If your old PDS kicks you out or dies, you can recreate all of your data onto your new PDS by replaying it off of the relay.

That is, with Mastodon, your identity and your data storage are linked, so changing your identity requires changing your data storage, and changing your data storage requires changing your identity. But with atproto, these two things are separated, so changing one does not require changing the other.

Even if you sign up via bsky.app, there isn't even one official server: they partitioned their userbase among a bunch of different PDSes.

> Moving your account on Mastodon account has multiple options, all of which are closer to redirects

My understanding is that Mastodon wants to build the feature where you truly move your data into a new identity. They have the export working, but not import. So ultimately this will work as well.

> So ultimately this will work as well.

Which is another way to say that it doesn't. Great if Mastodon ends up adding that, but it's not fair to say "we also have it, but in the future".

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