I personally prefer staying on Mastodon, but it's good to see large platforms starting to support federation.
I foresee one or both platforms implementing a bridge api, if they don’t outright switch to the other’s protocol.
The important part is normalizing federated social networks.
In ActivityPub, posts, comments, and users themselves are identified by URLs consisting of DNS names and small sequential IDs, with the same entity having a different ID at each instance it is federated to. For example, the comment I'm replying to is ID 6283426 on its home instance, and 5909380 on my instance, and 5405408 on the home instance of the community this thread is in.
In ATP (bluesky's protocol) everything is identified by cryptographic hashes and digital signatures, while the DNS-based URL of a user's current "personal data server" at the time they created a post is not part of the post's identity.
The difference in data models is a major impediment to bridging the two protocols. If two different bridges convert the same post (or other entity) from either one of these protocols to the other, they will always be creating duplicates.
I'm not an expert on either protocol but it seems to me that the only way to bridge them in a way that works well would be for both protocols to be substantially modified for the specific purpose of interoperating with each other, and so far I haven't seen any indication that either side is interested in doing that.
They won't. Blue skies federation is partial at best from everything I've heard. And apparently federation is mostly about client-side interface. With things on the server side, being much more centralized and heavy on the server itself. Specifically for algorithm tuning and commercialization. Two goals that are dimetically opposed with what mastodon wants to achieve. I'm not saying that no one will try. I'm just saying that it won't work well then blue sky has no interest in it.
The only way such a thing happens is if Mastodon just flat out takes over and it is a last ditch attempt to stay relevant in some way for blue sky. Because outside of a situation like that. It would make being subject to an algorithm and advertising major negatives. When you could just go to anywhere else on the network and get the same content without either of those.
I think in many instances threads federating makes a lot more sense. They ultimately want a lot of the same things. But it isn't their only product and only chance at a payday. Meta gets a lot of money from other sources. And I suspect they're playing this as part of a long game since they can tie it back into other established services of theirs. Like Instagram. Where Even if someone on Mastodon shares or links to stuff on Instagram, they still get to harvest data and possibly sell advertisement.
It's always good to have options. Bluesky has really popped off with a lot of subcultures for how simple it is compared to fedi. A lot of furry artists have moved there, for instance.
EDIT: FWIW, said this before, but Bluesky's server federation is more of a backend thing, ensuring the user doesn't have to worry about federation too much and ensuring its network is more resilient.
Bluesky’s server federation is more of a backend thing
Bluesky's federation doesn't exist yet. Maybe they've written some code, but I can't self-host something that Bluesky users can follow.
Bluesky’s federation doesn’t exist yet. Maybe they’ve written some code, but I can’t self-host something that Bluesky users can follow.
You can run their code today and federate in their sandbox environment, but yeah, their "production network" still doesn't federate yet. They said a while ago that the remaining work to be done was mostly around moderation; currently they say they expect to enable federation early next year but they have several other things on their pre-federation TODO now.
You can find details about their federation sandbox here and here.
I'm glad to hear it's not vaporware. Launching without open federation doesn't give me a lot of confidence they view it as a core feature.
Agreed, bsky is currently developing and testing its federation capabilities with multiple servers in-house, which is an elaborate way of scaling but doesn’t actually have the critical necessary component for a federation, ie another entity on the other side. Bsky is the sole operator, administrator, moderator, and arbiter.
Feels like there are a metric ton of furry artists on Mastodon too. I think furries are basically just everywhere. (Not that I care. Like what you like!)
They really are lol, and they make themselves known when they do.
Might feel more open if people didn’t need a fucking invite code to join, but ok.
It's not the worst idea. Tons of software goes through "closed betas," or "canary builds," or invite-only phases like this to test at scale, in a production-like scenario, but without opening the floodgates and getting inundated with issues reported by regular people. Heck even Fediverse websites sometimes close their registration pages if they're getting more signups than the admins/mods can handle. And that makes perfect sense, the last thing you want is to suddenly become unsustainably huge. It leads to a kind of social rot: trolls run free without enough mods to stop them, spammers run rampant, etc.
This is one of the core features of Bluesky that makes it “billionaire-proof”
is it really though? From what I understand even in the federated mode all accounts have to be verified by a central server? I dunno, maybe it's fake news, but I don't for second trust a social network created by a billionaire.
From what I understand even in the federated mode all accounts have to be verified by a central server?
Not all, but currently most are. The long-term account identifiers are DIDs, and they currently support two DID methods: the w3c-standardized did:web method (which makes your identity reliant on your DNS name), and bluesky's centralized did:plc method (which gives you a verifiable cryptographic identity not reliant on you keeping a domain renewed, but which they are responsible for the availability of and could censor).
The log of all operations on the centralized did:plc server is public and auditable, though, so, if i understand correctly, if/when they do censor it that can be detected and people can/will make the various components of the system use uncensored mirrors of it to continue using censored did:plc identities. And other people will choose to use did:web for their identities and be subject to the DNS rules instead (and this choice will be invisible to other users; all implementations are expected to support both methods).
In my opinion, the decoupling of long-term identity from everything else (including your display name, which is also DNS-based but can be changed at any time) is a pretty good idea, and I expect they'll probably support more than these two DID methods in the future.
Thank you for the explanation. I'm curious what this will look like in the UI and UX. did:web doesn't seem like something that the majority can/will use. It makes on easily identifiable by DNS (probably even with whois protection).
We shall see how it pans out.
"More exciting news: around the end of this month, we’ll release a public web interface. With this, you’ll be able to view posts on Bluesky without being logged in on an account." - huge news, this is critical for making bluesky a plausible place to base your online presence.
I have mixed feelings on bluesky, but in any case its continued development is very bad for twitter so I consider this a net positive any way you look at it
I literally have no idea why you would use that when there's already Mastodon, stable and already open to anyone.
It's good to have alternatives but i'm not waiting for Bluesky
I've used both for a while now. Here's some general reasons someone might prefer Bluesky:
It has a better sorta algorithmic feed that does a decent job of showing you stuff you might be interested in compared to Mastodon
It's presently not fragmented across a bunch of servers who may or may not federate with each other
Other than getting the initial invite, it's way less convoluted to use/understand for the average person
It looks and behaves more like Twitter. A lot of people just want Twitter without the Elon bullshit
And in my specific case, the quality and volume of the high talent art community is way higher and that's what I want to be seeing a lot of on a Twitter-like website. I was on mastodon.art and it's largely amateurish stuff that clogs the instance and their moderation team is not for everyone to put it lightly.
I'm all for fediverse, but the fact of the matter is that Mastodon leaves a lot to be desired if you just were looking for a new home after Twitter. And to an extent that's just a matter of taste. A lot of people don't give a shit about the righteous Activity Pub mission, they just want an online town square where the people and things they want to follow are readily available and the vibe is generally friendly. Simple as.
I'm on both Mastodon and Bluesky, but I'd be lying if I said that Bluesky wasn't clearly a better experience for me at the moment given what I'd like out of a social media platform. I hope Mastodon improves over time and that changes, but it ain't there right now.
I personally prefer staying on Mastodon, but it's good to see large platforms starting to support federation.
I foresee one or both platforms implementing a bridge api, if they don’t outright switch to the other’s protocol.
The important part is normalizing federated social networks.
In ActivityPub, posts, comments, and users themselves are identified by URLs consisting of DNS names and small sequential IDs, with the same entity having a different ID at each instance it is federated to. For example, the comment I'm replying to is ID 6283426 on its home instance, and 5909380 on my instance, and 5405408 on the home instance of the community this thread is in.
In ATP (bluesky's protocol) everything is identified by cryptographic hashes and digital signatures, while the DNS-based URL of a user's current "personal data server" at the time they created a post is not part of the post's identity.
The difference in data models is a major impediment to bridging the two protocols. If two different bridges convert the same post (or other entity) from either one of these protocols to the other, they will always be creating duplicates.
I'm not an expert on either protocol but it seems to me that the only way to bridge them in a way that works well would be for both protocols to be substantially modified for the specific purpose of interoperating with each other, and so far I haven't seen any indication that either side is interested in doing that.
They won't. Blue skies federation is partial at best from everything I've heard. And apparently federation is mostly about client-side interface. With things on the server side, being much more centralized and heavy on the server itself. Specifically for algorithm tuning and commercialization. Two goals that are dimetically opposed with what mastodon wants to achieve. I'm not saying that no one will try. I'm just saying that it won't work well then blue sky has no interest in it.
The only way such a thing happens is if Mastodon just flat out takes over and it is a last ditch attempt to stay relevant in some way for blue sky. Because outside of a situation like that. It would make being subject to an algorithm and advertising major negatives. When you could just go to anywhere else on the network and get the same content without either of those.
I think in many instances threads federating makes a lot more sense. They ultimately want a lot of the same things. But it isn't their only product and only chance at a payday. Meta gets a lot of money from other sources. And I suspect they're playing this as part of a long game since they can tie it back into other established services of theirs. Like Instagram. Where Even if someone on Mastodon shares or links to stuff on Instagram, they still get to harvest data and possibly sell advertisement.
It's always good to have options. Bluesky has really popped off with a lot of subcultures for how simple it is compared to fedi. A lot of furry artists have moved there, for instance.
EDIT: FWIW, said this before, but Bluesky's server federation is more of a backend thing, ensuring the user doesn't have to worry about federation too much and ensuring its network is more resilient.
Bluesky's federation doesn't exist yet. Maybe they've written some code, but I can't self-host something that Bluesky users can follow.
You can run their code today and federate in their sandbox environment, but yeah, their "production network" still doesn't federate yet. They said a while ago that the remaining work to be done was mostly around moderation; currently they say they expect to enable federation early next year but they have several other things on their pre-federation TODO now.
You can find details about their federation sandbox here and here.
I'm glad to hear it's not vaporware. Launching without open federation doesn't give me a lot of confidence they view it as a core feature.
Agreed, bsky is currently developing and testing its federation capabilities with multiple servers in-house, which is an elaborate way of scaling but doesn’t actually have the critical necessary component for a federation, ie another entity on the other side. Bsky is the sole operator, administrator, moderator, and arbiter.
Feels like there are a metric ton of furry artists on Mastodon too. I think furries are basically just everywhere. (Not that I care. Like what you like!)
They really are lol, and they make themselves known when they do.
Might feel more open if people didn’t need a fucking invite code to join, but ok.
It's not the worst idea. Tons of software goes through "closed betas," or "canary builds," or invite-only phases like this to test at scale, in a production-like scenario, but without opening the floodgates and getting inundated with issues reported by regular people. Heck even Fediverse websites sometimes close their registration pages if they're getting more signups than the admins/mods can handle. And that makes perfect sense, the last thing you want is to suddenly become unsustainably huge. It leads to a kind of social rot: trolls run free without enough mods to stop them, spammers run rampant, etc.
is it really though? From what I understand even in the federated mode all accounts have to be verified by a central server? I dunno, maybe it's fake news, but I don't for second trust a social network created by a billionaire.
Not all, but currently most are. The long-term account identifiers are DIDs, and they currently support two DID methods: the w3c-standardized
did:webmethod (which makes your identity reliant on your DNS name), and bluesky's centralizeddid:plcmethod (which gives you a verifiable cryptographic identity not reliant on you keeping a domain renewed, but which they are responsible for the availability of and could censor).The log of all operations on the centralized
did:plcserver is public and auditable, though, so, if i understand correctly, if/when they do censor it that can be detected and people can/will make the various components of the system use uncensored mirrors of it to continue using censoreddid:plcidentities. And other people will choose to usedid:webfor their identities and be subject to the DNS rules instead (and this choice will be invisible to other users; all implementations are expected to support both methods).In my opinion, the decoupling of long-term identity from everything else (including your display name, which is also DNS-based but can be changed at any time) is a pretty good idea, and I expect they'll probably support more than these two DID methods in the future.
Thank you for the explanation. I'm curious what this will look like in the UI and UX.
did:webdoesn't seem like something that the majority can/will use. It makes on easily identifiable by DNS (probably even with whois protection).We shall see how it pans out.
"More exciting news: around the end of this month, we’ll release a public web interface. With this, you’ll be able to view posts on Bluesky without being logged in on an account." - huge news, this is critical for making bluesky a plausible place to base your online presence.
I have mixed feelings on bluesky, but in any case its continued development is very bad for twitter so I consider this a net positive any way you look at it
I literally have no idea why you would use that when there's already Mastodon, stable and already open to anyone.
It's good to have alternatives but i'm not waiting for Bluesky
I've used both for a while now. Here's some general reasons someone might prefer Bluesky:
I'm all for fediverse, but the fact of the matter is that Mastodon leaves a lot to be desired if you just were looking for a new home after Twitter. And to an extent that's just a matter of taste. A lot of people don't give a shit about the righteous Activity Pub mission, they just want an online town square where the people and things they want to follow are readily available and the vibe is generally friendly. Simple as.
I'm on both Mastodon and Bluesky, but I'd be lying if I said that Bluesky wasn't clearly a better experience for me at the moment given what I'd like out of a social media platform. I hope Mastodon improves over time and that changes, but it ain't there right now.
Gross, get fucked Jack.