This is what solidarity looks likehttps://thenexusofprivacy.net/what-solidarity-looks-like/(Part 2 of “Decentralization” and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere)@general @fediverse @fediversenews #blacksky #bluesky #activitypub

Really enjoying this article from @thenexusofprivacy about #Blacksky and what is cooking in the independent part of the Atmosphere https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/115186867637585567

@thenexusofprivacy @general @fediverse @fediversenews

Like this because it celebrates the truly independent groundbreaking activities of Blacksky on AT Protocol while clarifying that the network still has a long way to go to be effectively decentralized due to the overwhelming dominance of Bluesky PBC. It is possible to both cheer for these independent efforts and hold the company to account.

@berniethewordsmith thanks, glad you liked it!

@thenexusofprivacy Have a follow-up question. Infrastructure wise, is it still more expensive to build an instance there compared to Fedi? Like, is Blacksky able to operate 100% apart from them or do they still rely on the corporate servers for some stuff?

@berniethewordsmith Good questions! Right now Blacsky is still using some important pieces of Bluesky infrastructure: the AppView, the platform-level automated moderation for CSAM / malware / spam (which Bluesky outsources to Hive), and the PLC directory (although they're running their own mirror of that so paying the costs for it). https://neuromatch.social/@jdp23/115107435947310644 talks a bit more about dependencies.

I'm not sure of the costs. A big difference from fedi is that the PDS only stores information from people hosted there (as opposed to here where instances have copies of all the info that's sent there). On the other hand Bluesky and Blacksy support uploaded video so it probably takes more per-person. The AppView (which they're working on) is something of an unknown -- besides Bluesky's, the only other ones currently active have just a handful of people, so it's not clear how costs will expand. Replacing platform-level moderation is expensive; Rudy estimated $160K/year -- although this is a place where the direct comparison to fedi doesn't make sense, since most instances don't do that. There are starting discussions with other projects about how to reduce costs on this, but it's early days yet.