thirtyfold8625<p>I'm not sure that your reply is directly related to my comment. The full sentence I quoted is "<a href="https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Under these definitions, Bluesky and ATProto are not meaningfully decentralized, and are not federated either.</a>" by Christine Lemmer-Webber, but <em>Daniel Holmgren</em> talked more directly about "decentralised distribution of data".</p>
<p>Because of what I quoted, I don't think that "Bluesky" or "ATProto" are decentralized or federated, so it's extremely unlikely that I'll interact with them anytime soon. The particular reason that they are not decentralized or federated is not really interesting to me.</p>
<p>To get specific: it is a significant issue for me if "everyone can access the data but before it reaches the end users it goes through centralised applications". A "centralised application" is able to restrict my ability to contact other people, whereas with a <a href="https://www.privacyguides.org/en/advanced/communication-network-types/#federated-networks" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">federated</a> and/or <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/comparison-centralized-decentralized-and-distributed-systems/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">decentralized/distributed system</a>, it's more likely that I will be able to contact someone that I want to communicate with. For comparison, consider how people would feel if using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the United States Postal Service</a> meant that all physical <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mail</a> had to pass through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C." rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the District of Columbia</a> or if sending an email message required interacting with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140327222411fw_/http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/ka10.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><code>BBN-TENEXA</code></a> just because <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_email#Host-based_mail_systems" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">that was the first machine to be capable of sending networked electronic mail</a>. In the ideal case, the recipient of a message I send would not have to coordinate with me at all before they receive the message: "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140209064041/http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The first use of network email announced its own existence.</a>"</p>