iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 21/09/2026

Yeah so I got bigger numbers of weekly-active users on W (38,687) vs. Eurosky (33,274) in the last week, but a much smaller fraction of W users post anything, a lot more seem to be new signups. Do I remember seeing that you have to be identity-verified to post on W?

Liked: W 52%, E 91%
Followed: W: 39%, E 64%
Created: W 33%, E 6%
Reposted: W: 14%, E:55%

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 28/08/2026

But then I open it in the Blacksky (web) app, and *this* is in my notifications. Notice that it doesn't @ me, but, it's in the same position in my notifications, so it's clearly *supposed* to be the same post. Even has my 🩷 on it.

A completely different post, in a different language - but also from Standard Reader, also about a 5th-most popular post.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 28/08/2026

WHOA here's a bizarre new failure mode. Check out this notification I got in the Bluesky (web) app: @standard-reader.app telling me one of my @pckt.blog posts got read a lot this week.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 26/08/2026

Yep. Shit's on fire, yo. Just not as bad as 10 days ago.

Medieval painting of a guy pointing at a fire

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 16/08/2026

My own PDS cannot resolve my own profile when Bluesky's services are down, I am not making this up (yes it could presumably do so if I reconfigured it to use a different appview)

Browser console log showing what I'm complaining about in the post

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 12/08/2026

FWIW here's what it does with ones too long to fit

Screenshot of a toot with four images, alt text beneath them. It trails of with an elipsis, and each alt text has a number that matches the ALT button on the screenshot

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 27/07/2026

microcosm (first) and firehose.network (second) do look more like Bluesky, though - will work on building some actual, higher-quality graphs with actual timestamped logs at some point

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 27/07/2026

Re-ran with more datapoints and uh?

Gently falling values with strange outliers recently

Low values, a big spike, steady values, a *huge* spike, then low values

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 27/07/2026

Okay, rough charts showing events per second. Don't try interpret the X axis, this is just every time I logged. First is a Bluesky relay, second is Blacksky.

A graph with a fairly consistent set of values, except for some large deviations recently.

A graph with a far less consistent set of values... I guess?

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 23/07/2026

You thought it was Trump that wanted to annex Canada into the US, but no, it was Bluesky (yes, I know why this happens, will write up a thread later for the benefit of anyone who doesn't)

Screenshot of Bluesky wanting to verify my age because it thinks I'm in Texas

Map screenshot showing that I'm in Calgary, AB, Canada

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 18/07/2026

Interesting, one of @leaflet.pub's Atmosphere Field Reporters, announced today, seems to have had their account nuked by @bsky.app - this also took down their Leaflet posts. Are folks sure they want all their eggs in the Bluesky basket? lab.leaflet.pub/3mquhjtnhcc2...

Screenshot of The ARTmosphere Leaflet blog, with no posts

Screenshot of the Bluesky web interface saying that an account has been suspended

Screenshot from PDSls showing that torrent-empress.bsky.social has been taken down by the Bluesky PDS they are on

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 17/07/2026

OMG the obnoxious "AI Company" slop bot followed me Hi obnoxious "AI Company" slop bot

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 10/07/2026

I finally added an oft-requested feature to arewedecentralizedyet.online , my project to track statistics for the atmosphere and other Internet infrastructure. it now includes history for the Shannon Index, showing how decentralization has evolved over the time I've been collecting data.

A screenshot of https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ showing a gauge with the HHI, an indicator that the Shannon Index is increasing, and a graph of values over the last 6 months.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 02/07/2026

My count of active users is actually closer to 10%! However, that's dominated by some gigantic PDSes that are either bridges from other protocols or likely spam :( At some point I want to do a deeper dive, classify them, and write up what that distribution looks like.

Screenshot from arewedecentralizedyet.online showing "rest" of PDSes at 9.2%

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 19/06/2026

Its family control features send me threatening messages like this

Message from Google Families warning me of upcoming changes to my spouse's role in my family group, as if they are filing for divorce or something

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 23/04/2026

so I hear we get more pixels now?

A drone shot of Presidents Circle at the University of Utah. It has typical campus things (grand old buildings, less grand new buildings), lawns, etc. The foothills of the Wasatch Mountains are in the background.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 03/04/2026

It's fun seeing @surf.social show up as the top decentralizer this week on arewedecentralizedyet.online

A screenshot showing the one-week trend for decentralization on the Atmosphere. The top contributor is surf.social, which has added 921 active users

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 01/04/2026

Here's the full set of custom emoji from the server I'm on. They tell you you should pick a server that matches your interests and values, but this is not true, you shock pick a server with sweet emoji.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 01/04/2026

come to Mastodon we have not only :sickos: but :sick_os: as well

A scene that resembles the popular "sickos" meme but the face looking through the door is Tux, the Linux penguin

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 06/03/2026

Wait‽ How can *.host.bsky.network (Bluesky PDSes) decentralize the atmosphere? Especially while adding active users? It's counterintuitive, but real: the metrics I use take "market share" into account, and right now, Bluesky PDSes are not adding active users fast enough to maintain market share.

A screenshot of arewedecentralizedyet.online showing that the Atmosphere is currently decentralizing - PDSes such as Blacksky and Eurosky are cumulatively adding users faster than Bluesky's PDSes.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 06/03/2026

Case in point, in one of these I clicked on the root post, and in the other, I clicked on Dan's reply from my notifications

Thread showing a root post and two replies

Same thread, but this time with three replies

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 28/01/2026

No @jcsalterego.bsky.social liking this post will not make any of them verify you

Screenshot of Jerry liking the post this is a response to

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 28/01/2026

Interesting to see some of these (most of the rest of PDSes seen on bsky but not blacksky are single user)

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 24/01/2026

New type of data up on arewedecentralizedyet.online : Bluesky trusted verifiers! Are all those blue checks being given out by the same verifiers? (answer: mostly, but by no means all!) Many thanks to @bskycheck.com for the data!

Screenshot of a gauge showing centralization of Bluesky Trusted Verifiers, with an HHI value of 6795 - about 2/3 of the way through the scale from "competitive" to "centralized"

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 22/01/2026

Launching their new social network, W, the EU posted a map of where other social networks are hosted. It showed nothing in Europe. But their map is wrong. Here's what Bluesky and the broader Atmosphere actually look like arewedecentralizedyet.online/map/?source=at

A screenshot of a map showing that most Bluesky accounts are hosted in the US, but not all of them. There are a number in Canada and Europe as well.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 14/01/2026

I've moved arewedecentralizedyet.online to new datasources, including actual monthly-active-user counts for the #atproto world. Using actual MAUs, there are a full 1% of active accounts now that are not on Bluesky PBC PDSes.

Screenshot of the site Are We Decentralized Yet, showing gauges for the Fediverse and the Atmosphere. There is a banner at the top indicating that it's using new data sources.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 02/12/2025

eg. this is my mastodon feed today, 20% of the posts are from an instance that defederates from the big ones

A screenshot from https://moderation-explorer.online/ showing that 19.8% of the posts in my feed come from types.pl a server with 0.006% of the fediverse population. Second is mastodon.social, then all other posts come from servers with less than 0.5% of the fediverse population.

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 02/12/2025

I've been using this site for several months, and I still don't know what this button does, but "viewing the full thread" definitely ain't it

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 11/10/2025

Wow this past week is by far the biggest jump in the Shannon Index (measure of how spread out users are across PDSes) for the atproto world since I started tracking, right on

A screenshot from arewedecentralizedyet.online showing an 8.54% increase in the Shannon Index for the Atmosphere in the last week

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 04/10/2025

ICYMI: arewedecentralizedyet.online now has some features that show trends over time so you can watch user data get spread out more, whether you like waffles or not, and as the atproto ecosystem grows

A screenshot from arewedecentralizedyet.online showing that the Atmosphere has been getting more decentralized over the last week

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 04/10/2025

Well, the "DEC/ACC" strategy seems to be having a measurable impact

A screenshot of arewedecentralized.online showing that the one-week trend of the Atmosphere is towards decentralization

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 21/09/2025

Yeah and after a big week of increase in distribution across PDSes, the trend has flattened back out; the userbase on bluesky PDSes grows so fast that it's a race that's hard to win.

Screenshot from arewedecentralizedyet.online showing that in the last week the Shannon Index, a measure of population diversity, has remained almost totally flat for the atmosphere

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Rob Ricci @ricci.io · 16/09/2025

FYI I'm still pondering this but I used my evening to add another feature that I think highlights the progress the atmosphere is making

A screenshot from arewedecentralizedyet.online that shows concentration of user data on the Fediverse, Atmosphere, and Public Git Forges. In addition to the HHI, it now highlights trends in the Shannon index, showing that the Atmopshere is decentralizing and the other two are holding steady.

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