Looks like someone's built a Reddit-like on top of ATProto. Would be really interesting to see whether it could interact with the threadiverse through something like BridgyFed, which currently only works with microblogs (I think?)

Opportunity? Existential threat? You decide...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] rglullis 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Federation is not the natural unit of organization, that's a hill I'm ready to die on. The problem is that most people get hung up on the idea of instances because they've only experienced the two extremes of siloed networks and the "Dark Forest" of blockchain.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

I agree with everything. The thing is, I've been thinking about the psychology behind this lately.

When Fedi-Fans complain about Bluesky, it is usually based on the misunderstanding that it also is instance based. It really doesn't seem to occur to many that things might be done differently. But I think it may go a little deeper.

A common complaint is that it's too expensive to run a full relay. People want to self-host it all. They want to feel that they are in control and don't need anyone. It's not particularly rational but people do lots of silly things chasing that feeling. The rational start would be to move somewhere remote and grow your own food. Instead, people buy a pick-up truck or degoogle their phone.

That architecture also appeals to a more tribal mindset. An instance is "our" place. We just pull up the drawbridge when bad people come and we are safe here in "our" castle.

I think to some people that is more appealing than the more open design of atproto.

On Bluesky, there is all this waffle about some people trying to get someone banned. They might find such tribal architecture more appealing.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

On the topic of 'hills to die on', I will say I have gained a significant respect for you over the last 2 years, for sticking to your principles on this and following through on them.

We might disagree on the best way to do things. I'd witnesed you in the past receiving a lot of pushback (to put it lightly) for a well-intentioned but controversially implemented project (the whole Reddit mirroring and account claiming thing you tried). If I had been in your shoes at the time, I would probably have quit Lemmy and the Fediverse entirely for something else in order to try to pursue that vision. Yet, you've stayed with it, with the aim to refine your ideas on how to better bring decentralized social media to the general public. So kudos to you for your resoluteness on this.