5
TIL : The bluesky ecosystem is called Atmosphere.
Mhm, and their protocol is called AT Proto. The fediverse's is ActivityPub.
Yea BlueSky is only decentralised in name.
Also, these numbers are only for user data. Other components are even more centralized including the ones they use to censor speech that their corporation or certain governments don't like.
I think people don't have a particularly solid grasp of why you'd want "decentralization". Or at least I don't agree with the common take.
Admittedly the common take seems to be decentralization is important because more decentralization is more better, as far as I can tell. Personally, I don't think there's intrinsic value in decentralization, the value is in the functionality. Decentralization is a bit like the right to strike. It's super imporant to have. You don't want to not have it. You only use it if you need it, though.
The point of decentralization or interoperability is supposed to be that if there is a dealbreaking choice you can move the whole setup to somewhere that is not making that choice. But beyond that scenario, having one big thing is often going to be more practical than having many tiny ones. There is no real value in everybody hosting a tiny instance of a thing. It'll be less reliable and massively less efficient than a large consolidated host.
To put it another way, the difference between having one person controlling a service and having two people controlling a service is huge. Fundamental. Changes the whole game. The difference between a million people controlling a service and two million controlling a service is negligible. There is no effective competition between a bunch of similar computers all running the same software.
the difference between having one person controlling a service and having two people controlling a service is huge
If the control is split 50:50, then yes. If the control is split 99.5% to 0.5%, the difference is negligible.
That's the part where we disagree and I disagree with the group.
I think the argument that spinning up a full Bluesky replacement is too expensive is valid. I think the argument that the central Bluesky service being the majority of the landscape is a bad thing is not.
If someone can spin up a replacement, even at great cost, it means that if and when the service gets bad in the main instance people can create a different big replacement. Whatever made the original viable remains in place, so the incentives should be the same.
That is the big difference between two being possible or not. Especially if, like AT does, you have proper account migration (still a glaring gap in Fedi services).
You don't need a lot of decentralization for that to be true. Way I see it, the obsession with this particular metric is a purity test used as a marketing tool between competitor more than anything else. That pisses me off quite a bit because, frankly, I'm very tired of all the endless infighting in all the progessive spaces, from Linux development to FOSS in general to alternate social media to straight up left-wing politics. It sucks a lot and I don't particularly respect anyone who engages with it.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
5 points (100.0% liked)
Data is Beautiful
6832 readers
2 users here now
A place to share and discuss visual representations of data: Graphs, charts, maps, etc.
DataIsBeautiful is for visualizations that effectively convey information. Aesthetics are an important part of information visualization, but pretty pictures are not the sole aim of this subreddit.
A place to share and discuss visual representations of data: Graphs, charts, maps, etc.
A post must be (or contain) a qualifying data visualization.
Directly link to the original source article of the visualization
Original source article doesn't mean the original source image. Link to the full page of the source article as a link-type submission.
If you made the visualization yourself, tag it as [OC]
[OC] posts must state the data source(s) and tool(s) used in the first top-level comment on their submission.
DO NOT claim "[OC]" for diagrams that are not yours.
All diagrams must have at least one computer generated element.
No reposts of popular posts within 1 month.
Post titles must describe the data plainly without using sensationalized headlines. Clickbait posts will be removed.
Posts involving American Politics, or contentious topics in American media, are permissible only on Thursdays (ET).
Posts involving Personal Data are permissible only on Mondays (ET).
Please read through our FAQ if you are new to posting on DataIsBeautiful. Commenting Rules
Don't be intentionally rude, ever.
Comments should be constructive and related to the visual presented. Special attention is given to root-level comments.
Short comments and low effort replies are automatically removed.
Hate Speech and dogwhistling are not tolerated and will result in an immediate ban.
Personal attacks and rabble-rousing will be removed.
Moderators reserve discretion when issuing bans for inappropriate comments. Bans are also subject to you forfeiting all of your comments in this community.
Originally r/DataisBeautiful
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS