I didn't say anything about "not kind:1", so you're addressing the wrong question. Anyway, you do pose interesting points, but let me say some things:
I thought it would be clear from my article above that I have two major concerns: their identity system is fully centralized and ran by the Bluesky company and their BGS is ran by a single company, which can control everything and perform any form of censorship, shadow-banning, limit who can join and so on.
If some other app is running their own BGS then fine, that won't be taken down, but interoperability becomes a very distant goal at this point. These will always and forever be just two independent apps -- in fact even if they're using the same BGS that is true if they're using completely independent schemas. Maybe that's a feature, I don't know, but you don't need a protocol for that, you just need people making their own apps with their own servers like it already happened in the internet before.
This is not to mention the fact that each of these apps runs their own server (the distinction between AppView and BGS doesn't matter much) and will not work if that specific developer decides to shut it down, and that developer can decide to censor, kick people out, do anything they want, as always, and there is no alternative besides someone else creating a new instance and trying to compete (again, this is not different from normal "web2" apps competing with each other -- and we know once one gets big enough network effect their power becomes absurd and competition becomes absurdly hard).
If we assume this is all good -- and sure it does look like an improvement over the previous state of the internet, albeit a very small one -- we must address the fact that the only good thing they're bringing is the portable identity. This part is the most egregious, because their "decentralized interoperable identity" is just one server that the Bluesky company hosts. How can that be defended?
fiatjaf /
npub180…jh6w6
2025-03-31 12:33:41
in reply to nevent1q…2x4s
Author Public Key
npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6Published at
2025-03-31 12:33:41Event JSON
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"content": "I didn't say anything about \"not kind:1\", so you're addressing the wrong question. Anyway, you do pose interesting points, but let me say some things:\n\nI thought it would be clear from my article above that I have two major concerns: their identity system is fully centralized and ran by the Bluesky company and their BGS is ran by a single company, which can control everything and perform any form of censorship, shadow-banning, limit who can join and so on.\n\nIf some other app is running their own BGS then fine, that won't be taken down, but interoperability becomes a very distant goal at this point. These will always and forever be just two independent apps -- in fact even if they're using the same BGS that is true if they're using completely independent schemas. Maybe that's a feature, I don't know, but you don't need a protocol for that, you just need people making their own apps with their own servers like it already happened in the internet before.\n\nThis is not to mention the fact that each of these apps runs their own server (the distinction between AppView and BGS doesn't matter much) and will not work if that specific developer decides to shut it down, and that developer can decide to censor, kick people out, do anything they want, as always, and there is no alternative besides someone else creating a new instance and trying to compete (again, this is not different from normal \"web2\" apps competing with each other -- and we know once one gets big enough network effect their power becomes absurd and competition becomes absurdly hard).\n\nIf we assume this is all good -- and sure it does look like an improvement over the previous state of the internet, albeit a very small one -- we must address the fact that the only good thing they're bringing is the portable identity. This part is the most egregious, because their \"decentralized interoperable identity\" is just one server that the Bluesky company hosts. How can that be defended?",
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