Can we please stop arguing about whether Bluesky is decentralized?

Also published, in slightly different form, as an epilogue to “Decentralization” and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere

One of the most common responses on Mastodon and other Fediverse social networks to Bluesky's decision to block Mississippi was to argue that this highlighted that Bluesky isn't really decentralized. Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko's post, leading to a long thread of discussions (including dialog between him and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick) is one example. I wrote about this question at length in “Decentralization” and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere last December, and my summary has held up pretty darned well if I do say so myself:

"[W]hile I agree that today's actually-existing Bluesky and ATmosphere are still largely centralized in some important ways ... my perspective is that focusing only on that ignores the ways that they already are meaningfully decentralized.

Your mileage may vary of course. "Decentralization" means different things to different people ... [P]eople who are focusing on the (very real) concentration of power in the ATmosphere today, or the potentially-centralizing architecture of AT, find it more useful to describe Bluesky as centralized."

In some ways, a lot has changed in the months since I wrote that article. Blacksky has continued to progress by leaps and bounds; Over the last few weeks hundreds of people have moved their accounts to the new blacksky.app PDS, and they're running an early version of their app at blacksky.community as well as a relay at atproto.africa and a gorgeous Blacksky Algoriothms website at blacksky.xyz. ¹ Other ATmosphere projects are making great progress too, with Spark in Brazil also implementing its own complete stack, Northsky in focusing on the 2SLGBTQIA2S+ community, Gander (also in Canada) planning on launching this fall, a lot of energy behind Eurosky, and far too many other interesting things to list here.

Of course, Bluesky is still largely centralized in some important ways. 99.99% of the users are still on infrastructure run by Bluesky PBC. 99.99% of the users use Bluesky PBC's app. Bluesky PBC still controls the PLC directory that most ATmosphere software depends on. That said, your mileage may vary, but looking at all the progress and activity, it sure seems to me that's in the process of changing.

What isn't changing, though, is the discourse. People still focus on different aspects of decentralization. People who saw Bluesky as centralized nine months ago still see Bluesky as centralized. People who saw Bluesky as decentralized (or decentralizing) nine months ago still see Bluesky as decentralized (or decentralizing). Nobody's changing their minds in response to new information. It's basically the same discussions rehashed again and again.

One thing that's been really striking to me in this latest iteration of this interminable discourse is that so many people in the Fediverse present the fact that 99.99% of Bluesky users are still using infrastructrure run by Bluesky PBC as if it's a gotcha that people advocating for Bluesky and the ATmosphere aren't aware of.

No, actually, ATmosphere developers I talk to are very very aware of these limitations. They just prefer to invest their time and energy in working to improve the situation rather than arguing about the semantics of "decentralization."

That sure seems like a good approach to me.

So can we please stop arguing about this already?

Notes

¹ Rudy Fraser's recent 🔭🖤🚀 Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable on New Public (with Josh Kramer), podcast with TechDirt founder (and Bluesky board member) Mike Masnick, and Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power are good recent overviews.