Hey folks, Nuked here! Today, I’m diving into the fascinating world of social tech with a twist: even the coolest decentralized platforms can stumble.

Recently, Bluesky, the decentralized social network, experienced a major outage that left users unable to access it for about an hour. The company quickly acknowledged the problem, which they linked to “Major PDS Networking Problems.”

Despite being decentralized, most users rely on Bluesky’s official app, built on the AT Protocol. Interestingly, only those who run their own infrastructure, like relays or PDS, were unaffected by this glitch—highlighting how early-stage decentralized networks still depend on centralized components.

The outage sparked some rivalry banter with Mastodon, another decentralized network operating on ActivityPub. Mastodon users joked about the resilience of their tiny servers compared to Bluesky’s hiccup, emphasizing how smaller, user-configured machines keep things running smoothly.

Thankfully, Bluesky resolved the issue quickly, restoring service. This incident raises questions about decentralization’s reliability—can a system truly be fault-tolerant? The hope is that many communities will soon host their own infrastructure, creating more resilient and diverse social spaces, like the efforts of Blacksky to foster safer, decentralized online communities.

In the end, the outage shows that even decentralized networks aren’t invincible. But with continued innovation, these platforms are promising more robust and censorship-resistant online experiences for everyone.