ATProto needs more independent implementations

Yes, this. What we really need is a journalism foundation run application layer.

Applications still have discretion to remove individual accounts from the application. Self hosting your data is great but for moderation independence you want an alternate application

• via Paul Frazee

Moderation rules on a surface, we've already seen, respond to the pressure of user departures. That response isn't always predictable, but if you're concerned with how moderation works, you need alternate applications to offer up DAU pressure.

The thing is no effective social media approach can support true sovereignty b/c social media is about being in community w/ other people & communities are fundamentally defined by their rules. No one wants to be in a rules free space. That way lies Nazis and crypto shills

i don't really think that 'sovereignty' in the sense that people want is ever really fully possible

So yeah, like I was rambling out the other day, we basically have confirmation that self-hosting doesn’t equal sovereignty. Even if you run your own PDS, the app layer remains the choke point.

Bluesky proper (or any other dominant client) can quietly choose not to surface your content.

• via neutral

• via ae

I think people really want the capacity to say: well digg sucks now so I'm logging into reddit tomorrow and all my stuff and friends are already there but the surface is doing things differently in a way I like. That is, I think, something @Proto can support, but we need more people building stuff

For it to really work you need dependable independent implementations on every level. Independent moderation layers, independent PDS hosting, independent feeds and independent applications. Law of Two Feet needs to apply at every l level of the social protocol. But...

You also have to accept that there will constantly be winners with the majority of use and "losers" with a minority of use and that is actually the victory condition. Your success cannot be measured only on use, but in reliability and sustainability. Capacity to suddenly become popular basically.