Post AyAwtSY0HiVDkISgL2 by ricci@discuss.systems
(DIR) More posts by ricci@discuss.systems
(DIR) Post #AyArioBczWFvtz66QS by mmasnick@mastodon.social
2025-09-10T07:19:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social @ricci No @ricci is making a different (totally valid!) point. I am saying IF he included Threads, would you then say that Mastodon is less decentralized?That's the only question I am asking. If your answer is yes, I would be confused. If your answer is no, you are admitting that this is not a measure of decentralization.Which is it?
(DIR) Post #AyArip1jrlwKVbTieO by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-10T08:23:54Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mmasnick @mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social I think a better question here, Mike is *if* Threads had 400M users who were active on the fediverse, would the fediverse be more centralized?I would say yes.
(DIR) Post #AyAripyEMIjBR0qQoy by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-10T08:34:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mmasnick @mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social Of course, it does not. It has like 50k.
(DIR) Post #AyAriquiqpW2MQD8zY by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-10T21:30:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social But even if all of #threads would be part of the #fediverse and make the fediverse practically centralized, it wouldn't change the the factual situation that a) #mastodon is #decentralized, b) #bluesky as being controlled by a single company is completely centralized, and c) #atmosphere as being dominated by #bluesky is practically centralized.
(DIR) Post #AyArirRgsFt40fdTNY by mmasnick@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T02:57:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @ricci @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social the thing is, multiple people have explained to you, repeatedly, that your point "b" is incorrect. ATproto/Atmosphere is NOT controlled by a single company. Why you keep repeating that lie is the part that bugs me.
(DIR) Post #AyAriryIuzyVdotWDI by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T03:18:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mmasnick @folkerschamel @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social I am not a fan of this guy's style of engagement but I do feel the need to point out that his point b literally does not say what your reply says it does.
(DIR) Post #AyArisWgr9TrMSyyoK by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T03:23:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @mmasnick @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social Okay to play devil's advocate for my own point :) there are things you could plausibly say are part of bluesky but not the atmosphere that are not controlled by the company, namely third party labelers and feed generators.
(DIR) Post #AyAritAkSDWVMhiyFU by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T04:31:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @mmasnick @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social Interesting question, it might be cool to build a little tool that makes it easy for people to explore questions like this for themselves. Could be fun. For some kinds of people (I am that kinds of people)The HHI for such a configuration would come out to 4963, so in terms of the needle, just about halfway.
(DIR) Post #AyAritvBfYfbgjS3dI by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-10T08:26:22Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mmasnick @mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social (and of course I am talking about centralization of deployment here, not protocol - I think we agree that both ActivityPub and AT Protocol are decentralized protocols, with different strengths.)
(DIR) Post #AyArixcXuo8TA4lE8G by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T03:29:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @mmasnick @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social In this sense it might be fair to say that Bluesky is not 100% controlled by the company. I'm not sure why Mike feels the need to change what the other poster said, through. Are "bluesky" and "atmosphere" intended to be synonyms? I thought they were intentionally overlapping but distinct.
(DIR) Post #AyAtStl6hpFkSWEYYi by mmasnick@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T02:58:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social I disagree. I don't think it would be any less decentralized. Arguably, I would say it's more decentralized because it would have more users who *can* move elsewhere while remaining in touch.
(DIR) Post #AyAvh7sBE73SCBSDOi by mmasnick@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T04:21:28Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @folkerschamel @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social fair enough, but then he is comparing apples to oranges. i was trying to make sure we were comparing like to like. if you just say "bluesky" then I could jus say "mastodon gmbh" and we are in the same camp. Both have some servers that they control. But they are both part of wider ecosystems. So Folker is either extremely confused or is deliberately misleading.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtSY0HiVDkISgL2 by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T01:32:07Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social Centralization is not binary the way you're presenting it here.Let's say we have a 400M-user Threads and a 1M-user Mastodon. If they defederate or Threads dies, Mastodon users loose access to 99.8% of the people they could communicate with. Ouch. But Mastodonians still have 1M people in their network so maybe it'll survive. Definitely not certain, though, that's a big cut. That's why I say a version of the Fediverse with 400M actual federated Threads users would be quite centralized.Now, people on one side may not actually give a shit about communicating with people on the other side. Fine, the people in both networks are not gaining a lot from federation. This seems to be more or less the status of most of the Fediverse and Threads, and why I think the correct thing to do is count the number of Threads users who have actually turned on federation, not the rest of them. If they defederate (as a lot of the Fediverse has done already), not a lot of connections are cut. This is why the existence of Threads does not increase the centralization the Fediverse today. This could, of course, change. This is why one should *keep* counting the number of Threads users who federate.Now, let's do this for Bluesky and Blacksky (in its role as a PDS, appview, and maybe soon relay). If, today, they split (say, the Bluesky relay stops talking to the Blacksky PDS and appview) or Bluesky dies, the 718 people on the BlackSky PDS lose access to the 38M people on the Bluesky PDSes: 99.999% of the people in the network. Again, maybe people on Blacksky could care less about people on Bluesky. But, given the even vaster difference in size, I'd wager that Blacksky users are pretty strongly interconnected with Bluesky users. And again, maybe this changes; in the week I've been watching, the number of users on the Blacksky PDS has gone up by about 200. Maybe it continues to grow and gets a lot bigger, that would change the dynamic. So again, this is why it's worth measuring and watching.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtTU8nZ0Uebf6xM by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T13:58:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social I didn't present it binary - I deliberately chose the words "completely centralized" versus "practically centralized" versus "decentralized".And while of course centralization is not binary, and there are many discussions about details and about the future, we should not muddle the water and forget the overall big picture that for all practical purposes today bluesky is centralized and mastodon is decentralized.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtUEvzaRAzjYTtQ by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T20:45:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social Here's an illustration of the difference (in agreement with your basic point).Threads is currently blocked by servers representing 31% of Fediverse MAU and muted by another 2.5%. (Data from https://fedipact.veganism.social/ )That's the independent decisions of 3,280 instances. Several thousand others chose to federate.Let's say the atmosphere had the same decision to make. One organization's decision re: whether or not Thread's PDSes on their relay would affect >99% of atmosphere users.Mike will probably say that Bluesky might fragment, with people who don't like its decision, whichever way it goes, moving to services that make a different decision. Yes, it might. And they would get to take their data with them, which is great, and they can still communicate with the people who stay behind.But I gotta say, these seem to me like very different decision making processes with respect to whether power is held centrally or distributed to independent actors.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtUtLZKlP14Sksq by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T21:57:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social To add, I think the credible exit argument falls apart in reality anyway. See reality check Mississippi blocking: Many people on bluesky seem to not like the decision, but at the same time I have seen nobody acting on it and moving to services that make a different decision.BTW, using a different analysis only 7% of the fediverse seem to be known to block #threads, down from 9% last year, see also https://mastodon.social/@folkerschamel/111612927848322776.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtVRNWnzAicNvvc by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T23:17:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social Interesting post, thanks. I didn't cross-check the fedipact data against another source, that's probably part of our discrepancy, but the data from them does add up to about 900k MAU, so I don't know why it's such a big discrepancy. Anyway, we agree that this represents highly-decentralized decision making in action, right?I think I'm more optimistic about credible exit than you are, part of the goal is not just that people will move, but that it will discourage individual platforms from taking actions that will piss users off. That said, I think it absolutely does not *guarantee* decentralization or user-positive behavior. The web search market has great credible exit, yet Google is staying around 90% (depending on source) even while making a lot of people quite angry about various things.
(DIR) Post #AyAwtWB6mmZ70RmSCu by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T23:35:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.socialYes, agreed that fediblock is a text book example how decentralization works well in practice.Well, then #bluesky credible exit is the same as decentralization support of #atproto: cool tech, nice theory, clever marketing trick, but largely irrelevant in reality. Btw, #twitter has a credible exit too: just export your data and import it into something new.😉PS: any chance of an explanation ofhttps://mastodon.social/@folkerschamel/115184281756139935 ?
(DIR) Post #AyAwtXM8PGymevwm24 by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-12T07:36:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social I just wanted to update this, Blacksky added 300 users since this post, fueled by some unpopular moderation decisions on Bluesky. That's a win for credible exit.
(DIR) Post #AyBFJZceOvsQOOEl72 by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-12T00:47:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social I think the contention here is that Mastodon GMBH is to the Fediverse as Bluesky PBC is to the Atmosphere: both individual companies develop software, run services with users, and participate in a larger ecosystem that they don't control[*]. Each company can be called a "central" entity, and the whole can be said to contain parts that are outside that center. This is the point that I understand Mike to be making that he thinks you are missing or confused about.At some level, this is correct. But I think this is a very shallow reading. If you look at the actual structure of these networks, they are very different. A large majority of the Fediverse is not subject to Mastodon GMBH's operational decisions (TOS, federation decisions, etc. ). There are other projects that rival the software produced by Mastodon GMBH in both scope and userbase. The pressures that shape the Fediverse are much larger *outside* of Mastodon GMBH that the ones that come from the company. There are tens of thousands of people in the Fediverse who, for better or worse, are social network administrators. Decisions are made by a huge set of people. atproto envisions a world where these things *could* happen - but so far as I know none of them are true of it today.I think it is a major mistake to gloss over these differences.[*] I think we will all concede that Bluesky does currently have significant control over the larger ecosystem through its control over atproto, but I am willing to give them the assumption of good faith in terms of handing off that control; they've started, and I assume they will complete the process.
(DIR) Post #AyBFJb1rAhdKkr2P2W by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-12T05:32:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social But what exactly are you explicitly agreeing with that *I* am "either extremely confused or [...] deliberately misleading" about?
(DIR) Post #AyBFJfcs51cP0oO1I0 by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-12T01:29:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mmasnick @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social In terms of "credible exit" Bluesky has made some moderation decisions in the last day that have made a set of people mad and (anecdotally) as I result I just saw a of people move to the fediverse from there, so maybe that is the future of credible exit. :) They can still bridge, and fed.brid.gy currently hosts more than half of the accounts on the Atmosphere that are on non-Bluesky PDSes.[Edit: Some hard data shows that Blacksky users shot up by 300 that day, which is more compelling than my anecdote.]
(DIR) Post #AyBLpLqNlRcqePCD6e by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-12T06:24:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @ricci @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social Well, after complaining about style of engagement, he is literally explicitely agreeing with a wrong direct personal attack without ever retracting it. Well, this seems to be the kind of "diplomacy" some people seem to use in social networks.😉
(DIR) Post #AyBLpMiGX6j9LWPF5s by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-12T14:28:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social I didn't retract my statement that I disagree with your engagement style because I still believe it. I wanted to make a distinction between agreeing with the basics of what you are saying and the way you are saying it, that's all. People online have lots of different ways of interacting, and some of them work better in some situations and with some folks than others. I am not calling the way you've engaged in this "wrong." I'm happy to be having this conversation with you, as I hope I've demonstrated, I am just taking a different strategy.
(DIR) Post #AyBLpNaVHS723jmYdM by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-12T14:38:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social My note about not retracting was obviously not about engagement style, but about agreement with a wrong personal attack.Of course you are free to disagree with my "engagement style". I just think social media would benefit a lot from refraining from personal attacks and focus more on good faith substantial discussions, and it seems to me that this whole discussion is unfortunately not a good example for that.
(DIR) Post #AyBLpOFynFI08NBgHY by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-12T16:52:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@folkerschamel @mastodonmigration If what you are referring to is Mike's assertion that you are confused or misrepresenting, I am assuredly not agreeing with that. Since Mike hasn't answered, at least so far, I tried to understand the point I thought he was making, and show why it's wrong
(DIR) Post #AyBLpOye7B1CMu5Lu4 by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-12T17:05:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mastodonmigration Thanks for clarifying this! I appreciate that.
(DIR) Post #AyBLqG6yYwAnA5OFkG by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T04:23:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mmasnick @folkerschamel @mastodonmigration @mmasnick.bsky.social Agreed. But, they are very differently-sized parts of those ecosystems, and I think that matters.
(DIR) Post #AyBgCDL5Y5tY18jnoe by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T02:08:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social In fact, I have a proposal for a metric that attempts to measure this exactly. I'm calling it the B-Index (B for Block) but maybe I should call it C-Index for Caesar.
(DIR) Post #AyBgCEn89Jv6WOriAC by ricci@discuss.systems
2025-09-11T02:16:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mastodonmigration @folkerschamel @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social now with actual link:https://codeberg.org/ricci/are-we-decentralized-yet/src/branch/main/BIndex.md
(DIR) Post #AyBgCG2lUg1KPBBiAi by folkerschamel@mastodon.social
2025-09-11T18:11:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ricci @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social Some special cases of your B-Index: If only a single entity has a large number of users, then B_p = p >= sqrt(HHI) ? 1 : 0. If having only entities of the same size, then B_p = ceil(p / HHI).Also: While your B-Index expresses control X by the *most powerful* B_X entities, HHI expresses the weighted average *control of each entity*, since HHI is the expectation value of the control of the entity of a random user.