criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeplyThe primary reason #bluesky will never be decentralized is because the resource requirements are way too high. Yes, you can host a #PDS (personal data server) if you like, and that will provide you control of your own personal data. However, you're still dependant on someone else to host a relay, in order for your PDS to become part of the network. Hosting a relay seems to need upwards of 3 TB of SSD storage, and a ton of memory. And once you get that done, you need to host an app view, in order to make use of all of the data on the relay. While that's not quite ready for primetime yet, when it is, it ain't gonna be cheap. Based on what I can understand, an app view needs to index all data on the bluesky network, in realtime. This is the kind of architecture that only our VC funded #capitalist big tech masters could actually afford to deploy. So if, when you say "decentralized", you mean that Google, Microsoft, and Apple could each afford to run a shard of the network, sure it's decentralized. But if you mean that Joe and her homelab could run any useful portion of the network, it is in no way decentralized, and never will be. Even if compute prices come down to the point where small organizations could afford to deploy this sort of thing, you've still got the logistical nightmare that the relay hosts all of the data. From everyone. NAZI's, pedophiles, if you run a relay, all of that data is going to be passing through your server. Content labels and blocklists mean you might never see it, but if you run a bluesky relay, it still exists.
criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeplyFor some comparison, my single-user #iceshrimp instance is currently using about 3 gigs of ram, and 2 gigs or so of SSD. And that's huge! I have compute to throw at it, so I joined all of the large relays, I follow several hundred people, and I turned all of the configuration nobs as hard as I could to optimize for speed, rather than limiting resources. If you want to host yourself a home on the #fediverse, your resource usage is going to be significantly less than mine. But unlike with #bluesky, you'll be controlling all of the infrastructure you need.
criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeply@fastfinge Is there still a risk of criminal material making its way through your server with Mastodon/Iceshrimp too? While I don't really care about decentralisation, this is intended as an honestly curious question rather than any type of dismissive one.
criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeply@jscholes Yes, but for that data to hit your server, you'd have to be following the person who posted it. So the odds are much higher that you either wanted it, are willing to risk it, or will at least find out about it. If you're running a bluesky relay, it gets everything anyone anywhere ever posts. Doesn't matter if you follow or interact with them or not.
criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeply@fastfinge Makes sense. I can think of some attack vectors there, mostly related to account takeover, but this is a good distinction.
criticism of bluesky as I come to understand it more deeply@jscholes Yes, it was a huge problem for Lemmy, with people taking over accounts and communities and posting child porn, specifically to discredit the software. rblind.com doesn't host external images for that reason. However, it was obvious exactly what was happening, and it could be cleaned up fairly easily.
