I think the idea that the PDS servers "should" be neutral is unrealistic. If community servers are acting as de-facto infrastructure and you suppose that they "should" do something, well then, there's always an implicit enforcement mechanism standing behind the word "should". If you still need to invoke a centralized authority to make the players in a supposedly decentralized system work together, well, back to square one then. I will admit I myself have fallen into this kind of wishful "should" thinking before. And I think the reason why it's so easy to fall into is because the early internet had a lot of self-selected people that naturally aligned idea on certain values like curiosity, not assuming things about people, etc. But it's a different game now. I do think nostr is closer to a workable solution than bluesky, because nostr is fundamentally oriented toward redundancy/exit, not consistency/consensus. Notice that biological systems mirror this architecture.
There’s a debate raging over in the Bluesky world about whether or not infrastructure providers on ATprotocol should be neutral carriers or if people running things like PDS servers should be able to choose who they host.
It’s an interesting read and worth thinking about. From a Nostr perspective it’s like arguing for a custodial system then being upset at the power dynamics that exist because of that.
I’m curious what folks think. I think the poster kicked a hornets nest, not understanding how communities of users react to being told what they should or shouldn’t do with their own servers.
Thoughts?
https://gist.github.com/burningtree/d4aa172470293bdf2939c993cf48bbd4
Discussion
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