As new users downloaded the app, Bluesky jumped to becoming the app to No. 1 in Brazil over the weekend, ahead of Meta's X competitor, Instagram Threads.
But control of the protocol - the definition and development - is still controlled by the for-profit company, right? It hasn’t been handed over to a nonprofit governance committee, has it?
Federation or not, if Bluesky dominates the protocol, they can decide to stop federating and essentially kill the independent servers. Much like what Signal did. Sure, you can run your own Signal server, but without access to the dominant player’s market, and using a protocol that’s controlled monopolistically, it’s practically useless to do so - which is why almost nobody does it anymore.
You can’t run your own server. Never have been able to…
You can create your own federated chat app or whatever that uses the Signal protocol? You can also fork the Signal chat application? But all Signal messages run through Signal servers.
Is running a pds really equivalent to running your own instance? As I understand it, 2 friends running their own pds cannot federate without the centralized relay which still can’t be self hosted.
Bluesky has no documentation for running a relay (indexing node). It doesn’t seem like they intend to have any documentation on it any time soon. But it is possible to set one up yourself. I don’t know anyone that has done so.
Great, you can host your own instance!
And you’d still have federation issues, so doesn’t solve OP’s problem.
But control of the protocol - the definition and development - is still controlled by the for-profit company, right? It hasn’t been handed over to a nonprofit governance committee, has it?
Federation or not, if Bluesky dominates the protocol, they can decide to stop federating and essentially kill the independent servers. Much like what Signal did. Sure, you can run your own Signal server, but without access to the dominant player’s market, and using a protocol that’s controlled monopolistically, it’s practically useless to do so - which is why almost nobody does it anymore.
Wait what? Are we talking about the chat app?
Indeed
You can’t run your own server. Never have been able to…
You can create your own federated chat app or whatever that uses the Signal protocol? You can also fork the Signal chat application? But all Signal messages run through Signal servers.
Seems to be similar here, you can run PDS (personal instances), but they still rely on a central Bluesky server
Right, the point is there was never a time you could use Signal on another server.
Yes, that’s what the first comment you replied to said
No, you said there were “independent servers” and that Signal “killed” them…?
You also said you could run your own Signal server. You cant.
You also said nobody runs their own anymore, when they never did.
Is running a pds really equivalent to running your own instance? As I understand it, 2 friends running their own pds cannot federate without the centralized relay which still can’t be self hosted.
Bluesky has no documentation for running a relay (indexing node). It doesn’t seem like they intend to have any documentation on it any time soon. But it is possible to set one up yourself. I don’t know anyone that has done so.
You’re right, while there are advantages to hosting a pds, it doesn’t seem you can run a fully fledged instance at this time
Thanks for clarifying