1,546 karma · joined June 20, 2023
And I'm not discussing emotionally-heavy, but public standing within the community you've convinced to trust you with their social media algorithm
My point stands: Hosting a full Bluesky stack is big money, every month. And that ignores how the admin must be seen in a positive light; having deep pockets isn't enough, the admin team running (and paying for) the servers must be trusted not to manipulate what gets seen, who gets banned, and what links are deemed malicious.
I'm asking about every part of the full Bluesky stack because in the scenario that "Bluesky starts monetizing users" means if you self-host just part of the stack, and continue to rely on any portion of Bluesky's stack for your server... well, it's pretty obvious where the pressure and forced monetization will go to.
The above is why I'm intentionally ignoring all other threads about hosting just one portion of Bluesky. It being easy to self-host, say, a Personal Data Server, means that won't be the portion Bluesky builds monetization in to. The part of the stack that an extremely small number of people are willing and able (technically and financially) to host long-term, and are seen as good stewards worthy of users' trust, will be the part that starts abusing users.
Is there a cheaper method of self-hosting the entire stack I should look at, or is this seriously being pitched as something average home-labbers can do?
EDIT: Oh cool, it gets better. This [1] guide from ~2024 suggests an OVH server, also ringing in (at the time) at ~$150/month. Looking at the suggested configuration now, it's $367.98CAD / month. But please, tell me more about how if Bluesky needs to show an ROI, everyone'll start self-hosting PDS' and Relays
[0] https://lobste.rs/s/gsj2e2/how_self_host_all_bluesky_except_...
[1] https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/entries/Notes%20on%20Running...
Maybe not the best argument to anyone responding from their Linux computers, as Torvalds is generally viewed as Benevolent Dictator For Life.
I'd look for more examples, but using Wikipedia for any sourcing feels too on-the-nose, considering Jimmy Wales seems to be in a similar BDFL position
> There is no such thing on the market now
Good news, the ~12-year-old BlackBerry Q20 is back, and shipping, [0] with an updated motherboard. It's a real product, not vaporware; I have two. It has a headphone jack, a small form-factor, removable micro-SD card slot, and a battery that takes little more than a guitar pick and #0 Philips screwdriver to replace.
Parts are cheap as hell as well, with a new screen costing under $25USD, and replacement keyboards under $30.
There's multiple clean sheet designs [1,2] of similar devices as well.
Though I expect them to be treated like fun little runabout cars: made for (typically young) people that can't justify the cost, leaving nobody to buy them, who then bemoan their discontinuation... due to poor sales
[0] https://zinwa.com/product/q25-full-device/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_indicator#Internet_usage
Because the business model is malicious.
Meta has, quite intentionally, wedged itself in-between large amounts of human interaction. They know some people are malicious. They know the machine will frequently make the wrong call, because the auto-moderator can neither reason, nor account for context.
But hiring enough moderators to run moderation through the computer, provide a default "suggested" action, and having a human approve or deny, would be too expensive. It would demolish their profit, and may even pull Meta from black to red, financially. Their business model relies on making the wrong call, and having outrage bring it to the attention of actual Meta staff to correct it.
Meta does not get to blame the computer they put in charge of moderation instead of hiring adequate staff; computers can never be held accountable, so accountability moves up the chain to the people that programmed the computer and left it in charge.
For example, if a consumer is going to periodically (or ever) replace / upgrade their thermal paste, they can get a bump in performance. The consumer that's never going to do that is better server by paste that has slightly lower performance, but lasts much longer.
An SSD is faster, but a hard drive ticking away is a language its own, and an amorphous white-by-default Tesla Plaid may be one of the fastest cars on any road, but odds are the only feeling it evokes is "This is faster than any reasonable person needs, and likely more than is safe for any standard American motorist to be able to just go out and buy"
I can't say why, but I blanked on this being the rationale for your reasoning. I gave you way less credit than you deserved there, my bad
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rogers-debit...
This is exactly my point: while we agree that starvation is extremely unlikely, the problem is not raw caloric output. Stating in your earlier comment, "the country's farmers produce far in excess of what's needed to feed the population", is like saying the sun outputs enough energy to grow the crops, in that neither was really the problem in the first place. A major weak point though is funding, and financial support from, for example, the government.
Starvation in the US is beyond rare. "American farmers produce enough to keep everyone fed" is weak supporting evidence of that statement.
Broadly, I agree, and good grief do I wish people would follow this more often. But Google specifically has acted incredibly anti-competitively for several years now [0], especially regarding Android. This has gone on for such a long time that they have, in my mind, lost the benefit of any doubt.
As they continue to lock down Android [1], things that would have once been met with a "Wait and see" approach are instead met with suspicion and a default assumption that it's primarily (though not typically exclusively) done to serve their own interests.
So generally, yes! That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. However, Google's history is all the evidence I need to assume their actions are not done in good faith.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
[1] https://manualdousuario.net/en/blocking-unverified-apps-andr...
World-wide, accounting for every person vs every calorie, starvation has been a pricing and distribution problem for decades, not a "We don't have enough calories world-wide to feed everyone" problem. I agree with your overall point, but I don't believe "US farmers grow enough to feed the American people" the best supporting evidence.
[0] https://londondaily.com/climate-activists-glue-themselves-to...
> Do we somehow think the blue collar guy and the immigrant are dumb?
The country that's so loud about their second amendment that the average English-speaking person, not citizen, knows what it is, still hasn't executed Jeff Bezos; one of the richest men in the world who treats his employees so inhumanely that they have to pee in bottles.
Let me know when Americans as a whole boycott Amazon instead of buying from them, and maybe we can move on to "beat[ing] the CEO to death" from there. I've heard the country might be going back to live executions, but I hesitate to call that a step in the right direction.
Doesn't this feel like a perfect example of work done at 3AM when plugged in and (importantly) after the battery is fully charged? It won't be perfect, searching for an email in the afternoon that you received in the morning won't be in the index, but I generally don't need search for emails I received so recently anyways
One-time money from development runs out, but services like sewers, roads, power, emergency services, snow removal, and so on, need to be paid or saved for every year. Most US cities are sprawling, low-density affairs, meaning they're developed (and paid for) once, but all those roads still need money to maintain. Quoting from [0] to draw attention to what I'm talking about:
> What the tax productivity data shows is that "rich-people housing" with big lots and plenty of room for cars, which were subsidized when the neighbourhood was developed, continue to be subsidized throughout their long existence. Suburban single-family houses on big lots simply do not cover the municipal expense of things like repairing all that asphalt and clearing all that snow
People have asked previously how, if this were true, we would see more cities declaring bankruptcy - and some do [1], while others do what you've noticed, and raised taxes. The car-centric, driving-as-the-only-transportation-method way of life is financially unsustainable.
I'm not going to yell death to the automobile, but to make it the default, and in many cases only way to get around, is not a good long-term plan for cities beyond a certain size.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/evs-cities-climate-column-d...
Stir (very well) once, store in the refridgerator. The colder storing temperature keeps it from seperating, and in small volumes (like the amount you've put on bread) it warms back to a spreadable consistency within a minute or two
[0] https://tildes.net/~tech/1wam/blocking_of_unverified_apps_on...
I mention it because it's something I absolutely want in day-to-day use on my phone, and that I agree with it being one of the few things I'd make a point of not having with me when crossing the US border with
Normal people can sign out of Chrome, I can set up a delayed email (with an encrypted database) before I leave, or put it on a uSD card in my checked baggage, or any number of low-effort but not-on-my-phone workarounds
At this point recommending the minimum that normal people will actually follow feels more effective: photos, main messaging app, and password database.
Photos are backed up; normal people use Google photos, my partner and I use a NAS, but everyone should have a "Free up space" / "Delete photos that are backed-up from device" option. This makes it easy and gets you space for more vacation photos
Main messaging app can be Telegram, Whatsapp, or (in my case) Element. Deleting it from your phone won't cost you your messaging history, but gets your most sensitive chats out of any potential spotlight
I can handle a password database, but "Chrome saves my passwords" means signing out of Chrome is all normal people have to do
You've got it backwards: Snap said they were doing the bidding of the DHS and the FDA, and as such, their case belongs in Federal court. It was the court that said "No, you aren't, this is going back to state-level court". Per TFA (quoting State v. Snap, Inc., 2026 WL 2525593 (D. Kansas Aug. 27, 2026)):
> "No doubt, Snap performed some services for federal officers. Some of those services—like advertising on Snapchat—reflect no more than a standard arms-length commercial transaction. Other services, like lens production and custom research, didn’t involve a federal officer’s “strict guidance or control” over Snap. Snap thus has failed to identify any conduct that qualifies it as acting under a federal officer"
That's the world as it is, not necessarily as it should be. Not being a citizen of the country in question, or part of the culture, and most importantly, not being one of the people that deals with the consequences of whichever choice is made, means your opinion counts for so little as to be barely worth sharing
Sure, but they also won't generally bother if the fees are the same as the installed-on-every-device Play Store
CTV covered [1] how it was only roughly one-in-ten annually as well, which is again a far cry from the numbers in the states.
Does it happen? Yes. Is tracking a harder requirement for Americans due to a lower-trust society? I would say yes as well. Personally, I consider it nice to have, not required.
[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/6196297/canada-porch-pirates-fede...
[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/one-out-of-10-canadia...