Relay: works like a CDN
PDS: like a database
AppView: your Blueskies and deers dot social
This proof of concept is an AppView using a relay run by Blacksky instead of Bluesky. Most of the users are on PDSes run by Bluesky, but the quoted post comes from a self-hosted PDS. Self-hosted PDSes already far outnumber Bluesky-run and the only thing holding a lot of people back is the tooling to move back in the event of problems isn't there yet.
My favorite part of this is it's built on components built independently by different people building tools for their own needs and communities while the Bluesky folks were busy working on the core tooling to make it easier for others to do the same. Nobody had to ask anyone for permission.
