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2025-10-27 12:44:01

ErikJonker@mastodon.social

Read this excellent thread by @Mer__edith about Amazon/AWS, Signal, Cloud infrastructure and our dependency on the big 3/4.
https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith/115445701583902092
#signal #amazon #aws #ICT #cloud

2025-10-27 13:07:23

Ronny Lam

ronnylam@mastodon.social

@ErikJonker @Mer__edith And what's your take on it. That we should defend the fact that companies are addicted to hyperscalers because there is no other choice? There is always a choice. And it begins with design decisions. If you rely on features that only the hyperscalars can provide than you're sold. If we accept this fact, than the future is hyperscalar-only with potentially dystopian results. Time to move on. There are enough p2p and federated services that do not rely on hyperscalars.

2025-10-27 13:10:34

@BjornW@mastodon.social

BjornW@mastodon.social

@ErikJonker
@Mer__edith's thread was indeed interesting. The thing I was missing is the possibility of federated/decentralized solutions instead of a centralized solution operated by one entity.

Would it be possible to decentralize & federate Signal?Using multiple different entities cooperating & sharing the burden & not just selfhosters? Would this solve Signal's SPOFs: technical & organizational? Could this lower the dependence on hyperscalers subsidized by business?

2025-10-27 14:01:49

GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺

Eetschrijver@mastodon.social

@BjornW @ErikJonker @Mer__edith I'm not an expert, but I think they might run into latency problems?

2025-10-27 14:02:54

Erik Jonker

ErikJonker@mastodon.social

@BjornW @Mer__edith ...although i am a big fan of decentralized/federated solution i am wondering whether such a solution can support low-latency videocalling and things like that? The service quality needed can never be reached with selfhosters alone, however a more decentralized infrastructure then the current would be nice... For example european countries together can in the future maybe organise such an infrastructure.

2025-10-27 16:44:22

@BjornW@mastodon.social

BjornW@mastodon.social

@ErikJonker @Mer__edith

I'm not an expert & do not know for certain.

I do think it should be possible, depending on the details. For instance how many people in a call, amount of bandwidth needed etc. Developments like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/matthew/group-voip/proposals/3401-group-voip.md

Make me hopeful that decentralized & federated low latency video calls are a possibility.

Maybe some experts would like to explain why it is (not) possible and what the constrains are?

2025-10-28 16:11:11

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@@BjornW@mastodon.social As anyone who knows me will confirm, I'm a big fan of Matrix, and have been for years.

This means that my opinion will undoubtedly be biased, but I can confirm that federated audio and video over WebRTC works fine (at least for participants that have a half decent connection).

Matrix uses WebRTC in Element Call and my experience with that is good.

I just had a video call with my brother via Signal, and that had more latency than my typical calls via Matrix. Just sayin' 😇

@Ronny Lam @Erik Jonker @Misuse Case @Meredith Whittaker

2025-10-27 14:18:48

Misuse Case

MisuseCase@twit.social

@ErikJonker @Mer__edith There are a fair few people replying to her who either can’t understand or don’t want to understand what she explains *very clearly* in that thread.

The recent popularity and adoption of Signal is, I feel, related to the uptick in silly criticisms of Signal, coupled with insistence that people use a variety of more obscure and much less user-friendly messaging solutions.