Jan Wildeboer 😷Sep 5, 2025
"But #Bluesky is also federated, decentralised!1!!" Well, no. https://arewedecentralizedyet.online by @ricci
Show threadNathan A. StineSep 5, 2025

@jwildeboer i agree with the sentiment 100%, but to be clear Bluesky isn't any more or less decentralized than mastodon.social. Bluesky is a service that runs on atproto. Just as mastodon.social is a service that runs on ActivityPub.

atproto is theoretically decentralized in a similar way to ActivityPub, but there's just no one else of any size building on it. atproto is decentralized in theory, but not in practice. Hence the terrible graph you posted.

@ricci

Show threadRob RicciSep 5, 2025
@stinerman @jwildeboer There are some initiatives going on right now that *might* make a difference in this, blacksky now runs its own instances (using its own implementation) of most of the pieces. It's still small in terms of the userbase on its PDS, but this could be an inflection point. Or not. Which is why I think this is an interesting time to start watching.
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷Sep 5, 2025
@ricci @stinerman I am mostly saddened that the VC driven Bluesky folks decided that the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome led them to creating a new protocol instead of adding their weight to the ActivityPub/Stream protocol family. Now we have again a fractured ecosystem and factions. Le sigh.
Show threadNathan A. Stine

@jwildeboer I agree with that 100%. At this point all we can hope for is good interoperability between the protocols.

@ricci

Sep 5, 2025 at 2:49pmWeb