One way to combat this would be to force users to stake something. Pay 10 bucks to your account and if you misbehave by spamming or posting only AI slop, you lose it. Brings with it other problems, of course.
That's a nonsense idea because it fails to define how low-quality undeclared slop (LQUS) can accurately even be classified. Also, if money is on the line, it will be taken away even when the article is not LQUS.
I agree, but there is a slight alteration of the proposal which could work rather well. Pay $10 to get in, but no change to the procedures by which your account is revoked. This puts a price on sock puppets, while almost any legitimate, normal user only wants one account, and gets it for a trivial fee. This may also relax the pressure to monetize through ads, which could have perks.
Saying you do does not change what others see across your comments. I'd suggest reading the HN guidelines again. I do myself from time to time because there is some good internet decorum wisdoms in there. I hope by reading them, you can see your comments more like how we see them.
I don't seem any claim in GP's comment that it would make it decentralized. It does seem, by looking across your comments in this thread, that
(1) You feel very strongly about what decentralized means w.r.t. social media, bluesky, and the PLC
(2) ATProto accepts that it's not planned to be as decentralized as some want, and that it is currently centralized with secondary validators.
(3) No answer or plan for the PLC is going to satisfy you. Nor is any argument you make going to change the plans for identity in ATProto for the foreseeable future.
This is all fine, people can have different perspectives and work/play in different ecosystems, no one is right or wrong. This is precisely why there are multiple protocols out there and bridges between them.
May I then ask why you keep making comments to the same effect aas those you made in the post and multiple times here ~12h ago?
> This is precisely why there are multiple protocols out there and bridges between them.
Yes, that's great! What's not great is Bluesky attempting a hostile takeover on federated and decentralized social networks. It's been advertised from day 1 as an alternative to centralized silos and it's a lie. [0]
To be fair, projects like Blacksky try to decentralize it (except the identity server, as it's impossible??), and there's now a vibrant developer community around ATProto. That doesn't make the centralization and false marketing claims any less problematic.
Develop the protocol you want. Don't lure my friends into it by pretending it's something that it's not.
The whole premise of a free social media protocol is that it is resistant to hostile takeovers. All issues stem from this.
1. I absolutely feel very strongly about decentralization. If there is a part of the stack that isn't it opens up the whole project to the kind of issues I'm talking about in the blog post.
2. Then it is not made to be resistant to the above problems
3. Actually, this is where you are wrong! If atproto implemented a more robust, decentralized default identity system I would be a very happy camper.
I make comments because I care about the subject, obviously. I use Bluesky a lot and I don't want it to end up like Twitter.
There is not one right answer and being hostile towards atproto doesn't earn you friends or support for your ideas.
I recommend adjusting how you argue for your position, especially the tone. If you want to pay it forward, and repair some the damage to your ability to make proposals within the atmosphere, I would further recommend you write an alternative version with a leading apology and take down the antagonistic version you have published.
Does the existence of did:web make it decentralized? You don't have to use the centralized identity provider at all. And if you own a domain why would you?
I don't think “they” have a whole lot to fix. It's more a matter of people needing to fix their own laziness.
I'll be the first to admit I'm guilty of this, too, and still haven't gotten around to moving my main account to a self-hosted PDS (though I've at least taken the steps to backup my CAR and set my own rotation keys, such that if my PDS goes offline or hostile I can still migrate away from it).
There have been some people trying to think about DID migration, but also core protocol designers saying that's problematic and probably not going to happen. We'll see, Bsky CTO has said real politik has its place, so rally anything can be on the table if you can convince the majority. I think we could have something equivalent to a "hard fork" should the need arise
I do advocate for using other networks (specifically Nostr) that are not designed like this, but the network effect is big and most of my friends are on Blue Sky because they have been lured into a false sense of “it’s decentralised, I can just move! If something bad happens”.
The reason they are on Bluesky is that it just works, its client just works and the barrier of entry is low. Oh, and others they want to follow are on there. That's it.
No regular user cares about - oh my data, it is stored centrally, how evil!
That is just not a problem most people have. Like at all.
reply