@mark thank you for the compliment and assurance friend.

I am always self conscious about my long winded replies because sometimes even I wouldn't wanna read a post that long.

Though, with topics like this that I'm very passionate about, I feel it's very important to lay out all the information and knowledge I have so that others can make informed decisions themselves based on the most important details.

I discuss Fediverse and networks like it, literally constantly and there's LOTS of nuances with these systems that need lots of explanations.

@fediverse

@Blaze no problem, friend.

I always worry if my long winded answers make sense to neurotypical people as I'm ADHD and slightly autistic.😅

So I hope it does make sense, at least even partially.

Overall, they're mostly centralized because there's *very* few relays and they're required infrastructure, but decentralized in other ways, which may or may not matter in the bigger picture because of this previous information.

@fediverse

@Blaze

Long winded, nuanced answer, ready your eyeballs:

It's a bit complicated, but since we're on Fediverse and at least somewhat familiar with how things work here, I'll try to explain with that comparison in mind.

On Fediverse, instances are in control of the user data directly. To "migrate" your account, you'd be switching instances and admins entirely.

BlueSky splits things up quite a bit more.

There, you can host your own "PDS" or Personal Data Server. That hosts your account and post info only.

Then, there's the "AppView". In comparison to Fediverse, these are like Lemmy, Mastodon, Mbin, etc. Right now, there's VERY few Appviews to choose from.

Then, there's the "relay". Which to Fediverse, the only thing similar is also relays, but they work differently. On BlueSky, they relay every post and interactions of all the PDS data that connect to AppViews. I do not think there's a choice on *what* is relayed, just a huge firehose. That being said, they're not optional like Fediverse. To complete the network, relays are required on ATProto and apparently could be expensive to host, so right now, it appears the only relay is hosted by BlueSky the company. Which makes things slightly centralized.

Now, that we have those definitions out of the way, this is where things get a bit muddy and a bit of purposeful corporate created confusion for purpose of selfishness is quite apparent.

Right now, there's very few AppViews. The ones I'm aware of are, BlueSky itself, Whitewind, and Frontpage.xyz.

The confusion happens because BlueSky, the company, doesn't separate the fact that accounts hosted on self-hosted PDS, aren't technically Bluesky accounts, they're ATproto accounts. Everywhere you look to login, it says "login using your BlueSky account". I can only assume they're doing this on purpose so that anyone who tries to make an Appview, host a PDS, AND a relay, can't have their own "identity" like different instances and platforms have here on Fedi.

That will confuse people and make them think *everything* is just hosted by BlueSky the company. However, as we've now established, there's definitely a separation of "Bluesky" the company, "BlueSky" the AppView that you can login to using your "BlueSky" account, which doesnt technically have to be hosted by anything related to BlueSky.

I hope this all makes sense and you can tell that *technically* things are decentralized for the most part. It's just that BlueSky is purposefully muddying their own definitions of things so that anyone that tries to build on ATproto, has a hard time making themselves known as *not* bluesky due to the way they conflate all these definitions.

Sorry for the huge post and hope it makes sense in some way.

Thanks for reading.😁👍

@fediverse

@Fitik and Fediverse only gained a few thousand.

We're losing because of the lack of moderation tools.

People don't always want to be a part of the moderation process. Matter of fact, I'd say most don't.

Therefore, people will just block and mute, and if it keeps happening, they'll leave.

If user reports continue to be the only way for moderation to happen, Fedi fails.

I've been beating this drum for almost a year and it really feels like it's never going to get fixed, unfortunately.😔

@dch82 first, "normies" have to not get harassed when they come here.

Unfortunately the biggest Fedi software refuses to add automated reporting of offensive posts so if it's not reported, the admins won't even see it.

People coming from corporate social media are used to ignoring the report button because in their experience, it either doesn't work, or gets ignored by admins anyway.

We need automated reporting.

@fediverse

@Fitik yep, there's literally no excuse to be on a chromium based browser now.

You want your information to be sold? Use chrome.

You want to use the internet? Use literally anything else.