From my perspective, I care about the centralization/decentralization aspect a lot, and if I'm coming into the discussion with a much better understanding of the Mastodon side then _of course_ I'm going to ask about the instances--that's the vocabulary I'm going to use to try to probe for flaws and gaps. It's not necessarily that it's the instances specifically I care about, or that I'm somehow technically misguided.
What I hoped to read in the article is how we approach topics like centralization, censorship, moderation, data ownership--and with a technical lens. But I feel like all I got was "here's why instances are the wrong vocabulary" without substantively talking about the part I personally care about and want to marry the technical understanding with. Maybe I just read too shallowly and need to sit with it.
I see! That's a huge topic by itself since you're raising a lot of questions. Maybe this could be a different article. My aim with this one was just to clarify the network topology because it is a prerequisite to having the other discussion, and too often that prerequisite is not there.
If you ask a list of specific questions, that would help a lot. I might be able to write something or reply inline here.
I felt the same: when folks ask this question they might not be using the correct terminology, but what they actually want to know is how many different PDSes (that's what you mean by "atproto hostings", right?) there are in a typical feed.
Currently, just over 3000: https://blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pdses
I appreciate that a lot! The article has a deliberate and explicit scope, and covers it well.
I'm hoping that perhaps my personal perspective shades why "instances" comes up, or why the reaction on HN seems to include the wider scope than the article itself covers.