With the news of the secret $100 million investment in Bluesky by Bain, I keep thinking about protocols.
Maybe the perceived "drawbacks" of #ActivityPub are ultimately strengths?
#ATproto handles identity in a way that allows a single sign-in across apps. But wouldn't this make it easier to profile you? Is this why crypto VCs are so attracted to it?
And ATproto has funding in the 100s of millions by VCs but at some point they'll want to turn a profit. There is ZERO pressure here to ensh*tt*fy
@_elena there's also no need for SSO (Single Sign-On) to mean “single identity” —as long as YOU are the one that controls the sign-on. See e.g. the Nomad protocol:
Imho they are strengths, for sure. The spec shortcomings, protocol decay, and chaotic commons' inability to address them weigh up to a certain amount of resilience in the ecosystem that manages to grow *despite* these drawbacks. And also #ATProto simply by being better specified, documented, and accessible to implementers, has led to such uptake of the de facto standard, that it has become a lightning rod for the kinds of commercial attention we rather avoid for the fediverse (generally speaking).
However, we can do better than chaotic commons, and foster chaordic organization around ecoysystem formation, such that one day we can say that #ActivityPub is truly "commons based", i.e. people are in control, by the people for the people, and able to sustainably evolve and grow naturally.
Chaordic organization is quite fascinating, and it aligns to the social dynamics that are at play on the fediverse between people..
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#chaordic-organization
> Maybe the perceived "drawbacks" of #ActivityPub are ultimately strengths?
This is where I disagree with the majority of current Fediverse.
> But wouldn't this make it easier to profile you?
Not really, no. Any sufficiently motivated entity can easily track internet activity, having different identities for different services does not really stop them.
@_elena The perceived weaknesses about the inter-connectivity is definitely strengths.
Fx. it's much harder for bots to infect your timeline and get reach on here. So it's less attractive to set them up.
I have no doubt that VCs are interested in keeping Bsky up for easy training fooder through the pipeline.
I wrote something similar 2 months ago on Bsky. 😅
In September of 2025, under pressure to show they are really 'decentralized' and to great fanfare #Bluesky announced they were spinning out the "one centralized component" of their network to a new fully independent Switzerland based organization.
Creating an Independent Public Ledger of Credentials (PLC) Directory Organization
https://docs.bsky.app/blog/plc-directory-org
Since then crickets. No information on progress. Structure? Funding? Ownership? Who will it employ? Will the financials be public?
The Bluesky Social app is built on an open network protocol that refers to each user by a unique Decentralized Identifier, or DID (a W3C standard). The most popular supported DID method was developed in-house by Bluesky Social, and is called "Public Ledger of Credentials", or PLC. The PLC identity system currently relies on a global directory service to distribute identity updates, and that directory service has been operated by Bluesky as well.
A little background here. This PLC directory is like the 'phone book' for AT Protocol, that enables this much ballyhooed ability to have a single name/address across all instances and apps. Whoever holds the phone book has total control over the network. Currently that is Bluesky PBC and their VC owners, but they have said they are relinquishing that to this new Swiss organization.
Should be interesting
@_elena Crypto VC's are attracted to it because it actually provides some excuse for their product to exist. The blockchain has some interesting properties that make it a reasonable answer here.
And yeah, the point is actually to build a profile. It wouldn't just be something that is made from the different sites you visit without your knowledge. You'd build it yourself. All your accounts linked up and people can see that.
I like the idea but want compartmentalization.
@_elena The same goes for account portability. One of the advantages for data harvesters is that it allows them to connect data points even when a person relocates to a different service. Presumably, this is one of the possibilities that attracted Dorsey to the "protocols not platforms" idea in the first place. When your business is trafficking in user data, the problem with platforms is that people sometimes leave them, which makes them harder to track. But if their new destination is on a protocol that routes their data to your server…
Most of the identity-related features of Bluesky double as data-tracking features.
@_elena I keep asking for this "decentralized" protocol to help me move off of all infrastructure controlled by the Bluesky corporation, and I keep getting the answer "well…so…uh…actually…"
Unfortunately I'm not waiting around for the "exit from evil billionaire control" scenario Jay Graber talked about a year ago or whatever, because that's already happened. So if I can't use ATProto without Bluesky, I guess I won't use ATProto. 🤷🏻♂️
@jaredwhite I noticed your posts Jared… and I was following with curiosity the replies. It doesn’t look good.
What worries me is that here in Europe advocacy for the open social web groups the two protocols together (ATProto and ActivityPub).
Also: European politicians and media organizations are gravitating towards Bluesky / ATproto and mostly ignoring the Fediverse…
@_elena Well…I would say it's "complicated".
I could envision a world where every major country or socioeconomic region has its own ATProto-based social network, because they have the resources to run that kind of infrastructure at scale. Not saying I like the idea, but that seems to be how ATProto was structured. Several *large enterprises* could run services which interoperate.
That's quite different from ActivityPub where you can run a decent social networking instance off a Raspberry Pi. 😄
@jaredwhite totally. BTW did you get an answer to your question yesterday?
I also wonder if there are ATProto equivalents to Phanpy or masto-fe... you know, web clients that allow you to log in with your credentials instead of going to bsky.app
@_elena Sounds like there are some potential destinations in development, but nothing has become fully baked yet apart from Blacksky.
I already use a custom frontend to Bluesky called Klearsky…I can't actually log into the Bluesky web app at all. Somehow I got caught up in their age verification requirements, even though I'm based in Oregon. 🤷🏻♂️
Yes, there are lots of different web and mobile clients. I use blacksky.community, which also has its own appview, so am almost completely independent of Bluesky infrastructure. @stefan mentioned Red Dwarf, and I think there are a handful of others that also allow you to select an appview (very analagous to how phanpy lets you choose an instance) so also allow almost complete independence.
In terms of your initial question, I think that many people (including me!) find a multiple-identity approach very valuable for a variety of reasons. That said, today's ActivityPub-based software doesn't handle multiple identities any better than ATProto-based software. So like so many other things with fedi, it's a potential strength that hasn't been leveraged.
Here's a conveniently-timed article looking at doing things completely independent of Bluesky - https://mia.leaflet.pub/3mhw3hzwtn224
@jdp23 Looks a bit involved. Interesting read, though, thank you for sharing!
Oh yeah, it's definitely at the duct tape and baling wire stage in general -- @jaredwhite is very right that right now Blacksky is the only reasonably-mature mostly-independent microblogging-focused tech stack. (Blacksky still uses Bluesky's PLC directory, although they do have a mirror that could if necessary fall back on; also they don't have their own mobile app yet, and still use some of Bluesky's moderation services.)
@jdp23 Are they also using Bluesky's servers for DMs, since those are stored off-protocol?
Or do non-Bluesky AppViews just don't have DMs? (Or whichever part of the stack is responsible for that.)
I'm pretty sure they store DMs in the Blacksky AppView (which is a fork of the Bluesky AppView) but not 100% positive.
You can run some of the ATProto infrastructure on a Raspberry Pi as well, with some of the same trade-offs we have here, like not having the full network view.
https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/116126040489956521
Not really trying to advocate for the Atmosphere here, mind you, but there is quite a lot of momentum over there.
And there is definitely progress, even if it's slow. A bit like here.
@coreysnipes I do like that there is interest in implementing some of the better ideas here, things like portable identity, or at least better account migration.
But we all know here there is just not enough funding for all the work that's needed.
Yes, Bluesky/Atmosphere is heavily subsidized right now, but still, there is a ton of momentum and excitement around it.
There are people putting in the effort to make the ecosystem more decentralized, many don't like how much control Bluesky the company has.
And they might just very well succeed.
@stefan
I still believe at some point in the future both protocols will converge. I imagine adding ActivityPub directly on top of a PDS would be one way (there's been a few experiments with that). I know there's a few AtProto apps that would like to add ActivityPub at the Application level. And it's probably only a matter of time before someone sets up an ActivityPub server that lets you sign in with your PDS, there's a lot of options out there, just have to figure out what works best for people (and figure out how to fund it all)
Yes, this is what I believe myself as well.
And some/all of you might know that wafrn comes with a built-in PDS already.
https://wafrn.net/faq/user.html#blueskyIntegration
If I was starting with the fediverse today, I might just be looking into running my server with it instead of Mastodon, honestly.
Yes, well, given the likely budget/time constraints, probably better than anything I'd be able to make.
@tom @coreysnipes @_elena @stefan @jaredwhite
we cant hire an UI designer
you can pay for one here
@gabboman @tom @coreysnipes @_elena @stefan I apologize for my comment, I know OSS dev is hard and I didn't mean to sound unkind.
Best wishes.
@tom @coreysnipes @_elena @stefan @jaredwhite
Sorry was a day today.
The web is more tumblr inspired, but the mobile app has a different design and you may enjoy that one instead.
The app is made by a different person with different design ideas!
@tom @stefan @coreysnipes @_elena @jaredwhite @[email protected]
you know you could've just not say that considering it's an unambiguous statement that cannot be really misinterpreted?
Well there are the people working at Bluesky the company (doesn't seem to be my crowd either) and then there's the development community trying to make the Atmosphere independent from them.
Not super familiar with the second group, other than folks I already know from here, but I do give them some benefit of doubt.
I mean, some of them are doing some interesting stuff, and again, trying to create independence from Bluesky the company. And that's quite commendable.
Yeah, I'd prefer to see them put in the effort here, but fediverse development is arguably more challenging, and with a smaller and less diverse userbase, probably less rewarding.
@stefan @coreysnipes @_elena Sure, there's a distinction between the corp and the folks working on the side on indie flavorings.
But it feels way too much like another Swift story to me (all attempts by non-Apple players to make Swift a great language ecosystem apart from Apple have largely fallen by the wayside… a shame really, because Swift is a pretty cool language).
@jaredwhite Yes, I think that's the big question, whether the larger Atmosphere will survive Bluesky's inevitable enshittification. A year ago, I would've said, probably not.
Today, I don't know. Maybe?
@_elena @jaredwhite To be fair, it is possible to host all of the ATProto infrastructure for much cheaper with the same trade-offs as with a fediverse server, where you get an incomplete view of the network.
@_elena @jaredwhite That is, with one exception.
Apparently the built-in DMs are stored off-protocol on Bluesky's servers. So, yeah.
(But they are apparently working on that.)
Attached: 1 image We now have a 10k+ community (likely more if you count lurkers) that could possibly survive by themselves if #Bluesky PBC was suddenly bought by Elon Trumpenberg and shut down #atproto
Yes, just to add, PDS is the easy part.
Here's a better way to view the network.
@stefan @everton137 That's a neat visualization, thanks.
Still want to reiterate that the PDS concept just doesn't interest me. It's like if you could move the 0s & 1s data storage of your emails & personal contacts off of Google hosting…yet still use Gmail and all of its UI & services thereof.
Why?
The reason I use Fastmail is because I want nothing at all to do with Google / Gmail. 😄
Yeah, definitely agree. Even if you host your own PDS, you have to have a lot of trust in people running each additional element of the ATProto stack.
I just don't, and that's in part not being too familiar with that community, but also, I'm getting strong "former NFT/web3 and/or former/current AI booster" vibes from some of the people.
Worth adding that there's a client that skips some of Bluesky's own infrastructure and connects directly to people's PDSes.
https://tangled.org/whey.party/red-dwarf/tree/aturilistservice.reddwarf.app
(But relies on some community tools, so back to the question of trust.)
@jaredwhite
I actually disagree, I think it'd be neat if ActivityPub had some form of PDS-like structure
move all of your emails & personal contacts off of Google hosting...yet still use Gmail
What if you take all your emails and contacts and move to something not dependent on Gmail? You no longer have the costs of leaving a Google service, because all your data is controlled by you.
Not a great comparison to the current AtProto ecosystem which is very dependent on Bluesky. But, I think the PDS itself is not to blame there.
If you self host your pds and use https://reddwarf.app you don't depend on any of bluesky's servers.
There's also wafrn, which has atproto support and activitypub support.
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