This might be one of the closest things I've seen to actually being able to own your account - instead of having it not just owned by a second party in every way that matters, but also beholden to a third party via an e-mail or a phone number you can't possibly own in any meaningful way.
That's pretty important in a world where the likes of Google can and will just reject your attempt to log in with a valid password on the grounds of "we don't like you", and force you to "confirm" yourself using a phone number that's defunct since 2009.
did:web is closer to owning your own identity, this is a central database controlled by an organization
The PLC makes it easy for Bluesky to be a custodian and onboard new users
ACCount39 4 minutes ago [-]
Doesn't did:web suffer from the same flaw as e-mail on your own domain - not being able to actually own a domain?
FiloSottile 38 minutes ago [-]
Sort of.
I like to insist that the PLC Directory collects and distributes updates to highlight how it's different from a database. The latest state of the account is signed by the key that created it, or by a key that succeeded it. The directory can't inject any values, it's just a low-complexity solution for data availability: the "how do I learn about updates" part.
It could decide to hide/reject updates, but then it could just as well be forked and replaced if it did that. If downstream applications decide to get their account updates somewhere else, that's the directory now, without any loss of continuity for the accounts.
You don't get that from a simple database.
One could argue domain registrations, and so did:web, are more of a database controlled by a (large, international) organization than PLC. Plenty of tradeoffs of course.
verdverm 32 minutes ago [-]
one of the other feature of PLC compared to did:web is that it presents the identity history, but this is also problematic for some people (dead naming and right to be forgotten)
I believe there is work around did web for an extension that would enable verifiable history
birdsongs 2 hours ago [-]
Just curious, how is this different from something like a PGP key server?
copperx 52 minutes ago [-]
The same difference between Dropbox vs an FTP account.
ForHackernews 1 hours ago [-]
Better than the eyeball-scanning ghouls.
tehnoslow 31 minutes ago [-]
I have to agree
verdverm 1 hours ago [-]
atproto is currently permissionless world readable, that seems worse to most people (I asked low 100s) than being in a siloed platform with some amount of control over who can see their content
oh, maybe you mean Sam Altman's World with their eye scanning for identity, that is quite dystopian
ForHackernews 52 minutes ago [-]
Yes I was referring to Altman's "WorldCoin" eyeball-scanning scheme.
Rendered at 21:23:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
That's pretty important in a world where the likes of Google can and will just reject your attempt to log in with a valid password on the grounds of "we don't like you", and force you to "confirm" yourself using a phone number that's defunct since 2009.
The issue is, as often is the case, adoption.
The PLC makes it easy for Bluesky to be a custodian and onboard new users
I like to insist that the PLC Directory collects and distributes updates to highlight how it's different from a database. The latest state of the account is signed by the key that created it, or by a key that succeeded it. The directory can't inject any values, it's just a low-complexity solution for data availability: the "how do I learn about updates" part.
It could decide to hide/reject updates, but then it could just as well be forked and replaced if it did that. If downstream applications decide to get their account updates somewhere else, that's the directory now, without any loss of continuity for the accounts.
You don't get that from a simple database.
One could argue domain registrations, and so did:web, are more of a database controlled by a (large, international) organization than PLC. Plenty of tradeoffs of course.
I believe there is work around did web for an extension that would enable verifiable history
oh, maybe you mean Sam Altman's World with their eye scanning for identity, that is quite dystopian