6 ms·

> Relays are quite expensive to run While relays are among the more intensive parts of AT Protocol infrastructure, their cost of operation is still something m

> Relays are quite expensive to run While relays are among the more intensive parts of AT Protocol infrastructure, their cost of operation is still something most people can afford: approximately $30/mo now. What is truly expensive and difficult is something that will be immutably so regardless of how centralized or decentralized you are: moderation. The author of this piece wrote about this common misconception about relays 9 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077291#45078223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077291#45078223

ramblurr 3mo ago
> their cost of operation is still something most people can afford: approximately $30/mo now. Your definition of "most people" must be very different than the literal meaning.
- Kinrany 3mo ago
  I think that's unfair because most people won't run their own relays any time soon, but rather rely on a local enthusiast.
- skybrian 3mo ago
  How about, less than what many people pay for a tank of gas? Most people won't do it, but they don't have to, and it's not a particularly expensive hobby.
  - TylerE 3mo ago
    In the US. How about in Kenya or Laos? Plenty of places where $30/month is closer to “median monthly income” than “an expense you’d barely notice”.
    - debugnik 3mo ago
      That applies to many other hobbies, not just running a relay; welcome to poverty. What's your point? Regular users don't have to run one.
    - skybrian 3mo ago
      We don’t need everyone to run a relay to get to the point where there’s sufficient redundancy that no relay matters too much.
- Klonoar 3mo ago
  If $30 a month is too much for you, then you probably should be doing something other than trying to run a relay. It is just not a significant amount of money.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- ascorbic 3mo ago
  Most people reading this, then
dbingham 3mo ago
"Most people" cannot afford $30 /month. And of those who can, most of those cannot afford the time and effort required to run a relay. And I honestly think this is one of the fundamental problems with the push back towards protocols and decentralization. We're overestimating the bandwidth and capabilities of the average user and we haven't fixed the problems that pushed everyone towards centralization in the first place. Take me, for instance. I am not only capable of running my own Mastodon or Atproto data server+relay -- I'm technically capable of writing my own ActivityPub or Atproto app. But I'm currently sitting with accounts on bsky.app and mastodon.social -- the biggest most centralized "instances" (yes, I know, but it reasonably describes the problem). This is because I do not have the time or mental bandwidth to even pick an "instance" that would be better suited to me and migrate, let alone run my own. And this is doubly and triply true for the average person who doesn't have the technical abilities I have. As a result, both Mastodon and Bluesky are still practically centralized to a large degree. An overwhelming majority (more than 90% last I found data) of Bluesky users are hosted by bsky.app. Similarly on Mastodon, a large plurality of users (~20%) are on Mastodon.social. Mastodon's obviously doing better than Bluesky in this regard, but it also has about a quarter of the overall traction, and I'd honestly put that down to Bluesky's apparent centralization which makes it a lot easier for people to join and wrap their heads around it.
- supern0va 3mo ago
  >"Most people" cannot afford $30 /month. And of those who can, most of those cannot afford the time and effort required to run a relay. I don't think that was a recommendation for people to do, but to demonstrate that it doesn't require much in the way of resources. That VM could probably host hundreds of people, since relays scale and de-dupe shared content. If someone said that email or a personal website was inexpensive and could be hosted on a cheap VM, I don't think you'd make a comment like the above dismissing it as impractical: the idea is that if it's that cheap, then there are people that can host cheap/free (maybe ad supported) relays, similar to how cheap/free webmail exists today.
- danabramov 3mo ago
  This isn't about "average user". Relays have nothing to do with using atproto as a user. They're about developers making new apps. By "most people" it's implied we're talking about most people who want to run a web app in their spare time. Do you mean a different definition? If you want to run a web app (which is the only reason you'd want a relay) and you're able to pool with ten other developers who want to do the same, you can make the cost to $3/mo. Is that feasible? What do you normally pay for web app hosting? And again, if you're a hobbyist developer, you'd just use a community relay that already exists and is free. I assume that, if you want to run your own, you have a specific reason to do so.
shimman 3mo ago
$30 a month is a pretty massive costs for such a program. Why does it require such a beefy VPS, is it just the initial bootstrapping that requires such resources?
- skybrian 3mo ago
  That's for a server that downloads and forwards all Bluesky traffic.
  - lou1306 3mo ago
    Not just all BSky traffic: all traffic from every ATProto service
- neko-moe 3mo ago
  Because if you want to relay every single public event for every single user on the entire atproto network in real-time to many consuming apps and services… that's gonna cost something. Not that it costs a lot, but to expect what a relay does to be infinitely cheap is to not understand what it's doing or why it's doing it.
  - shimman 3mo ago
    [dead]

ramblurr 3mo ago

> their cost of operation is still something most people can afford: approximately $30/mo now. Your definition of "most people" must be very different than the literal meaning.

Kinrany 3mo ago
I think that's unfair because most people won't run their own relays any time soon, but rather rely on a local enthusiast.
skybrian 3mo ago
How about, less than what many people pay for a tank of gas? Most people won't do it, but they don't have to, and it's not a particularly expensive hobby.
- TylerE 3mo ago
  In the US. How about in Kenya or Laos? Plenty of places where $30/month is closer to “median monthly income” than “an expense you’d barely notice”.
  - debugnik 3mo ago
    That applies to many other hobbies, not just running a relay; welcome to poverty. What's your point? Regular users don't have to run one.
  - skybrian 3mo ago
    We don’t need everyone to run a relay to get to the point where there’s sufficient redundancy that no relay matters too much.
Klonoar 3mo ago
If $30 a month is too much for you, then you probably should be doing something other than trying to run a relay. It is just not a significant amount of money.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
ascorbic 3mo ago
Most people reading this, then

dbingham 3mo ago

"Most people" cannot afford $30 /month. And of those who can, most of those cannot afford the time and effort required to run a relay. And I honestly think this is one of the fundamental problems with the push back towards protocols and decentralization. We're overestimating the bandwidth and capabilities of the average user and we haven't fixed the problems that pushed everyone towards centralization in the first place. Take me, for instance. I am not only capable of running my own Mastodon or Atproto data server+relay -- I'm technically capable of writing my own ActivityPub or Atproto app. But I'm currently sitting with accounts on bsky.app and mastodon.social -- the biggest most centralized "instances" (yes, I know, but it reasonably describes the problem). This is because I do not have the time or mental bandwidth to even pick an "instance" that would be better suited to me and migrate, let alone run my own. And this is doubly and triply true for the average person who doesn't have the technical abilities I have. As a result, both Mastodon and Bluesky are still practically centralized to a large degree. An overwhelming majority (more than 90% last I found data) of Bluesky users are hosted by bsky.app. Similarly on Mastodon, a large plurality of users (~20%) are on Mastodon.social. Mastodon's obviously doing better than Bluesky in this regard, but it also has about a quarter of the overall traction, and I'd honestly put that down to Bluesky's apparent centralization which makes it a lot easier for people to join and wrap their heads around it.

supern0va 3mo ago
>"Most people" cannot afford $30 /month. And of those who can, most of those cannot afford the time and effort required to run a relay. I don't think that was a recommendation for people to do, but to demonstrate that it doesn't require much in the way of resources. That VM could probably host hundreds of people, since relays scale and de-dupe shared content. If someone said that email or a personal website was inexpensive and could be hosted on a cheap VM, I don't think you'd make a comment like the above dismissing it as impractical: the idea is that if it's that cheap, then there are people that can host cheap/free (maybe ad supported) relays, similar to how cheap/free webmail exists today.
danabramov 3mo ago
This isn't about "average user". Relays have nothing to do with using atproto as a user. They're about developers making new apps. By "most people" it's implied we're talking about most people who want to run a web app in their spare time. Do you mean a different definition? If you want to run a web app (which is the only reason you'd want a relay) and you're able to pool with ten other developers who want to do the same, you can make the cost to $3/mo. Is that feasible? What do you normally pay for web app hosting? And again, if you're a hobbyist developer, you'd just use a community relay that already exists and is free. I assume that, if you want to run your own, you have a specific reason to do so.

shimman 3mo ago

$30 a month is a pretty massive costs for such a program. Why does it require such a beefy VPS, is it just the initial bootstrapping that requires such resources?

skybrian 3mo ago
That's for a server that downloads and forwards all Bluesky traffic.
- lou1306 3mo ago
  Not just all BSky traffic: all traffic from every ATProto service
neko-moe 3mo ago
Because if you want to relay every single public event for every single user on the entire atproto network in real-time to many consuming apps and services… that's gonna cost something. Not that it costs a lot, but to expect what a relay does to be infinitely cheap is to not understand what it's doing or why it's doing it.
- shimman 3mo ago
  [dead]