Oddbean new post about login | logout Spent a few hours digging through Bluesky's labyrinthian source code. Abstractions on top of abstractions on top of abstractions... Anyway, they make it impossible to fetch profiles from any PDS or their mega "relay" without credentials. But oddly if you run your own PDS, you can somehow fetch profiles from their central servers without authentication... huh... So I finally figured out that api.bsky.app is their open domain. Eg, this one requires authentication: https://bsky.social/xrpc/app.bsky.actor.getProfile?actor=did%3Aplc%3Azhbjlbmir5dganqhueg7y4i3 But this one does not: https://api.bsky.app/xrpc/app.bsky.actor.getProfile?actor=did%3Aplc%3Azhbjlbmir5dganqhueg7y4i3 So... they realized they had a problem. In order to be decentralized, you have to allow public access. But instead of just allowing public access to their big mega service, they made a separate service just for PDS installations and then didn't advertise that fact.
Btw when you run a PDS, it just just proxies all requests to api.bsky.app. The PDS exposes HTTP endpoints on its own domain, and when you use apps they do hit your domain, but the PDS itself just proxies the requests to the Bluesky centralized server at api.bsky.app. Your own posts do get saved into a local SQLite database, and there's an endpoint where other servers (like Bluesky's giga relay) can index your posts. It gets away with SQLite because it literally only stores your own posts. Feeds, other people's profiles, etc all get fetched from the upstream in realtime.
Wow that's sooooo decentralized
Seems more like #thecentralized technology
I found it weirdly deceptive that it makes you "think" you are self hosting this stuff (and it works like magic), and then you have tear so many layers away to reveal the truth.
Thx for doing this wizard researching! So it’s even more complex than activitypub? 🥸 Is there anyone raising a concern about this in the ATmosphere there? /cc @6114adea
There are similar complaints from activitypub followers: https://rknight.me/blog/unorganised-thoughts-about-bluesky/
it doesnt bother me. just dont use it. its crap and will always stay crap. Its made by folks with the wrong values and interests. they are shitcoiners... ...its all false promises. nostr is the real deal and we can go further peer to peer. if ppl are already on nostr, then bluesky is a step back