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Are we decentralized yet?

(arewedecentralizedyet.online)
487 points Bogdanp | 1 comments | 30 Aug 25 19:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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d4mi3n ◴[30 Aug 25 19:39 UTC] No.45077410[source]▶
Neat! I'm not surprised at the findings here. BlueSky (for the average user) is pretty much a drop in replacement for Twitter.

Despite the smaller total numbers in Mastadon, it's great to see that the ecosystem seems to be successfully avoiding centralization like we've seen in the AT-Proto ecosystem.

I suspect that the cost of running AT proto servers/relays is prohibitive for smaller players compared to a Mastadon server selectively syndicating with a few peers, but I say this with only a vague understanding of the internals of both of these ecosystems.

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isodev ◴[30 Aug 25 19:52 UTC] No.45077507[source]▶
ATProto also has the downside of being supported by a corporation and investors with various backgrounds that will eventually want to earn something out of it all and there is no telling how this will happen.
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Matl ◴[30 Aug 25 20:44 UTC] No.45077849[source]▶
ATProto also currently effectively relies on https://web.plc.directory which is a centralized service, making the protocol effectively centralized.
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1. danabramov ◴[30 Aug 25 21:13 UTC] No.45078053[source]▶
This is true but it's worth noting that (1) the entire point of this node is to be globally agreed on since it's the root of the identity mechanism, (2) it is auditable (https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc?tab=readme-...) and operations themselves are self-certifying (https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc?tab=readme-...). There are some potential issues (like PLC could choose to deny some operations), and the plan is to upstream PLC into an independent entity so that it isn't tied to Bluesky the company.