On Thursday night, Bluesky, the alternative decentralized social network, went through a historic and massive outage. For a full hour, users were unable to use the app on both web or mobile platforms. The issue began at 6:55 PM ET, when the first status message was posted, informing users of the disruption. A follow-up message at 7:38 PM ET indicated that the team was working on a fix.
Even with its decentralized approach, the longer-than-expected outage caused alarm within the Bluesky userbase who have come to depend on Bluesky for their online communications. Whether in the U.S. or abroad, the platform is particularly interested in cultivating diverse, multicultural communities. Each community can operate its own infrastructure, moderation service, or client app. This unfortunate occurrence serves to remind us of the perils that even the most decentralized of services can fall under.
Sarah, a seasoned reporter at TechCrunch since August 2011, has covered various technology-related issues, including the intricacies of decentralized networks. She has more than 10 years experience in journalism. Prior to that she covered tech for over three years at ReadWriteWeb and worked in I.T. in industries from banking to software.
The Blacksky team, responsible for Bluesky’s development, is committed to creating safer and more welcoming online spaces through its decentralized tools. This latest outage provides a stark reminder of the challenging nature of managing such a vast infrastructure.
Reflecting on the moment, Luke Johnson, a Mastodon user and commenter on our situation, remarked how dependable smaller systems are. His comment highlights the fundamental argument between centralized and decentralized networks that is still raging today.
“see how the mighty Bluesky crumbles while the Raspberry Pi running Mastodon under my bed just keeps chugging along” – Luke Johnson
Bluesky’s decentralized design means anybody can operate different parts of its infrastructure, such as personal data servers (PDS) and relays. This flexibility is meant to enable users and inspire a range of community-driven experiences on the network.
As the outage was resolved, users returned to the platform, but not without reflecting on the implications of such disruptions. The issue highlights again how badly we need resilience and reliability built in to our digital communication forums.
