Replying to Avatar ynniv

nostr is the minimum viable decentralization. Anything less than this is not viable, or not decentralized
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Garbage nsec 9mo ago 💬 1

Decentralisation is a moving target.

You look at the web itself, it started with a protocol (HTTP) and a single client, a browser called "WorldWideWeb", which they renamed Nexus in 1994 to avoid confusion with the broader concept of the World Wide Web. So the first "WorldWideWeb" was basically Chrome. And that means the web at first was totally centralised. Other clients then appeared and evolved, making HTTP more robust (Line Mode, Erwise, Viola, Mosaic...)

This idea that HTTP appeared and then the web just sort of "happened" on top of it is widespread but totally false.

That's the path ATProtocol has said it wants to go. For that to work the protocol has to get more and more decentralised as time goes by, and that means more and more independent implementations have to appear to take away market share and mind share from the Nexus-like flagship demo.

That's how many decentralised protocols have developed. And the opposite is also true, many protocols that started off pretty decentralised have gradually become more centralised over time (which arguably is what's happening vis a vis Nostr relays if you go by nostr.band stats).

Time dimension is important.

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fiatjaf 9mo ago 💬 3

Given that you have established that starting decentralized or not is irrelevant, what should we consider when assessing the decentralization status of a thing?

Incentives (and possibilities).

Any reasonable person can see that Bluesky will remain centralized forever because of identity centralization and data centralization, in fact it cannot be decentralized at all because the identity system is centralized by design (because they wanted to do a blockchain for key rotation but couldn't figure out how). All one can argue after that is that is that "it doesn't matter" because "login is easier".

While Nostr has much bigger chance of being decentralized, although it could also fall back into a "de facto Bluesky" mode and have its data all centralized in one place, but that would be a very unlikely hard failure edge case from which it could even recover later if developers wanted.

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ynniv 9mo ago 💬 1

The web was never centralized because anyone was always able to run the client or set up a new server without asking anyone. Without integrated identity or DRM there were no centralizing forces. Bluesky wants to be able to protect communities via "the right" moderation and identity management. This is core to the value of the platform, and also prevents it from ever being an open system. Free as in beer, not free as in speech

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Garbage nsec 9mo ago 💬 1

That's factually incorrect on petty much every level.

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ynniv 9mo ago 💬 1

🤷🏻‍♂️ Show me

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Garbage nsec 9mo ago 💬 1

Moderation is at the AppView level, not at the protocol level. If you create an AppView you can choose to use bsky.app's moderation, or use another app's moderation, or use no moderation at all, for the same base of user posts. Far as I know the relay does do sybil attack and CSAM mitigation, but that's about it, and there are other relays going up, each of which is free to choose how it tackles CSAM, etc.. Or an AppView can pull directly from a set of PDSs without a relay in between. Or a bespoke partial relay.

With a raspberry you could spin up an AppView in a few days that shows all the posts that the bsky.app moderation team has taken down, minus presumably the illegal stuff that by law they had to deal with on the lower-infra level.

Fiatjaf's argument would be that other Kind1 type clients are incentivised to just reuse bsky.app's moderation since it's way expensive to do one's own moderation, and that argument holds weight--but again the time dimension, we need to wait and see how this plays out over time.

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ynniv 9mo ago 💬 1

First let's establish that bsky.app is not decentralized. They hold your keys and your data. If they disagree (morally or legally) with what you say, you have no recourse. Since they hold your keys, they can rewrite your history however they wish and it will be authoritative.

Your argument is really that ATproto is decentralized. First, I would argue that it's federated, as users have a "home" PDS. This is different than nostr, where you can spray events across every relay, or store them in a file, or send them to a friend over BLE, and they are *equally authoritative*.

Second, these ATproto apps aren't actually using ATproto: they're connecting to a Bluesky API. Perhaps they use a serialization format from ATproto, but they're simply asking nicely for AppView to take actions.

Third, it doesn't matter what ATproto is capable of, as people are there for bsky.app. Important features like account management, message deletion, and content filtering are done inside bsky and not using ATproto.

So, as fiatjaf points out, when bsky decides that doing everything in a truly decentralized manner is too difficult and sunsets ATproto, no one using the service will even be bothered.

Just like XMPP

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Garbage nsec 9mo ago 💬 1

Let's come back to this in a year. Time is the only referee of consequence here.

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ynniv 9mo ago

Until then we should let fiatjaf's assertion that ATproto isn't "real" stand. It's currently aspirational, and there is no clear way to resolve fundamental deficiencies

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Garbage nsec 9mo ago

>Incentives (and possibilities).

That one, yes, very much agree. On identity, I think the question is if they spin out the did:plc directory into whatever ICANN like body they are in talks with, is that a meaningful change or not?

For me, the vast majority of people who care about ownership in some sense will see that as "good enough" and it will also be healthy for the internet in general. So if they do that—and again the other week they came out and announced the talks have entered some kind of a late stage—then did:plc is basically okay in my opinion. Yes still centralised, but I'm cool with ICANN or whoever else being that centre, so for me that's a meaningful move.

I'm guessing you see this ICANN solution as just moving the centralisation around and therefore not so meaningful, doesn't pass the not your keys test.

Anyway not much more to say about that until they complete the move and it's clear how things will look.

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PixelBob 9mo ago 💬 1

Also Blueskys mission has changed. It is no longer a "decentralized" platform, it is now a platform for left wing refugees exiting Twitter. I'm guessing 99% of the new Bluesky users don't know, understand or care about decentralization.

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Garbage nsec 9mo ago 💬 2

What are Nostr users' thoughts on decentralisation is a good question. If nostr.stats is correct then Nostr just had it's lowest day in four months, i.e. since the start of the winter Nostr has been shrinking. Why then are people leaving? Do they feel Nostr is becoming more centralised? Or is decentralisation a secondary concern, the issue lies elsewhere?

I'm not sure, but if decentralisation were a top concern then we would not be seeing relay usage clump up in this way. At the very least we would be seeing more of a fuss about the state of the relay network and shouts to get Outbox working well. I suspect Bitcoin and social patterns surrounding it are more top of mind for Nostr users than decentralisation, and the reason people are leaving is they are getting a little bored of that conversation.

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PixelBob 9mo ago

You raise some good points, personally i'm on Nostr for decentralization first and social second, and even I find myself resorting to Primal and one or two primary relays just so it works.

Majority of people just want it to work, I get that. But if we sacrifice decentralization then this is dead in the water and I move on.

As to why are they leaving, who knows, bored, sick of the bugs? Most people want to maximize influence and network effect, if they don't see Nostr as growing they will leave.