5 ms·

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

uberex 3mo ago
I just searched up Relay and I guess Relay is like Feeder in the analogy? I don't need it? And if I want it I choose one (many?) or run my own.
- hooverd 3mo ago
  You need a relay unless you want to have all the same NxM scaling problems as Mastodon.
  - neko-moe 3mo ago
    Not really, considering there aren't that many app servers. Each PDS sends out its events, those events are picked up by whoever wants them, mostly relays but some apps might directly subscribe. The more apps in play, the more connections, but it is not the case that for every new PDS, every other PDS now has to open an additional connection. It scales with the amounts of apps, not PDSs.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
hooverd 3mo ago
Mostly because having a big centralized firehose relay is less decentralized than people want to admit.
- chokolad 3mo ago
  Why is that a problem if you can host relay for $50 per month as TFA mentions?
- danabramov 3mo ago
  That's not true. It's not centralized in any way that matters. The Relay Bluesky uses is open source, you can run your own for $30/month if you really insist on doing that, it's trivial to pool between multiple apps if you want to lower costs, and there are already a few independent ones you can just use directly now, for example: - https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Fatproto.africa%2Fxrpc%2Fcom.atproto.sync.subscribeRepos https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Fatproto.afri... - https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Feurope.firehose.network%2Fxrpc%2Fcom.atproto.sync.subscribeRepos https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Feurope.fireh...
danabramov 3mo ago
Author here! I mostly skipped over it because a Relay is an optimization and not essential to the shape of the network. It's not a fundamental element in the same way that PDS (hosting) and AppViews (app servers) are. It's more like a "next reasonable thing" an engineer would bolt on to make it easy to create apps. An app can work without a Relay (like https://reddwarf.app/ https://reddwarf.app/ does). There are caches like Constellation (https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/) that you can just query directly. A Relay is not an "instance" in any meaningful sense because it is a dumb retransmitter. It is cheap to run one, and it is easy to pool them between multiple apps. (Fun fact for nerds: the Relay's API for subscriptions is literally the same as a single server's. So a Relay is kind of a facade for "a bunch of servers" that lets you listen to their events combined.) Early on (more than a year ago), running a Relay used to be more expensive because any Relay was expected to store the entire network archive. This is no longer a part of the contract, but a lot of discussions still reference or assume that. The current cost of running your own Relay (if you don't want to pool with anyone) is about $30/month. There are community-run Relays like https://firehose.network/ https://firehose.network/ that you can use too.
chokolad 3mo ago
> Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows? I wonder why you are vagueposting here instead of stating your position firmly. Maybe because you are afraid to be shown wrong, but who knows ?

uberex 3mo ago

I just searched up Relay and I guess Relay is like Feeder in the analogy? I don't need it? And if I want it I choose one (many?) or run my own.

hooverd 3mo ago
You need a relay unless you want to have all the same NxM scaling problems as Mastodon.
- neko-moe 3mo ago
  Not really, considering there aren't that many app servers. Each PDS sends out its events, those events are picked up by whoever wants them, mostly relays but some apps might directly subscribe. The more apps in play, the more connections, but it is not the case that for every new PDS, every other PDS now has to open an additional connection. It scales with the amounts of apps, not PDSs.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

hooverd 3mo ago

Mostly because having a big centralized firehose relay is less decentralized than people want to admit.

chokolad 3mo ago
Why is that a problem if you can host relay for $50 per month as TFA mentions?
danabramov 3mo ago
That's not true. It's not centralized in any way that matters. The Relay Bluesky uses is open source, you can run your own for $30/month if you really insist on doing that, it's trivial to pool between multiple apps if you want to lower costs, and there are already a few independent ones you can just use directly now, for example: - https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Fatproto.africa%2Fxrpc%2Fcom.atproto.sync.subscribeRepos https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Fatproto.afri... - https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Feurope.firehose.network%2Fxrpc%2Fcom.atproto.sync.subscribeRepos https://pdsls.dev/firehose?instance=wss%3A%2F%2Feurope.fireh...

danabramov 3mo ago

Author here! I mostly skipped over it because a Relay is an optimization and not essential to the shape of the network. It's not a fundamental element in the same way that PDS (hosting) and AppViews (app servers) are. It's more like a "next reasonable thing" an engineer would bolt on to make it easy to create apps. An app can work without a Relay (like https://reddwarf.app/ https://reddwarf.app/ does). There are caches like Constellation (https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/) that you can just query directly. A Relay is not an "instance" in any meaningful sense because it is a dumb retransmitter. It is cheap to run one, and it is easy to pool them between multiple apps. (Fun fact for nerds: the Relay's API for subscriptions is literally the same as a single server's. So a Relay is kind of a facade for "a bunch of servers" that lets you listen to their events combined.) Early on (more than a year ago), running a Relay used to be more expensive because any Relay was expected to store the entire network archive. This is no longer a part of the contract, but a lot of discussions still reference or assume that. The current cost of running your own Relay (if you don't want to pool with anyone) is about $30/month. There are community-run Relays like https://firehose.network/ https://firehose.network/ that you can use too.

chokolad 3mo ago

> Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows? I wonder why you are vagueposting here instead of stating your position firmly. Maybe because you are afraid to be shown wrong, but who knows ?