Really interesting things afoot in social media. It seems like "W", a newly announced "European alternative to X" is actually a fork of the Bluesky code, and is, at least for now, kind of part of the Bluesky AT Proto network. (Thanks to @quillmatiq for the explainer.)
And, apparently #Bluesky board member @mmasnick really doesn't like the idea.
It will be fascinating to see how this develops.
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick This is in technical terms tone deaf and a pile of shite
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick Why not use a true and tried European (distributed) social network like Mastodon? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick Which raises questions.
If this network is profiling with photo verification etc for all users , will it allow people to connect with other parts of Bluesky, where there are bots or unverified accounts? If so, the purpose is lost. However, if it remains closed to other parts of bluesky, it will most likely be isolated. I don’t think this will take off either way .
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick Mike always talks about decentralized social media but BlueSky and AT protocol haven't really moved the needle. Meanwhile in the fediverse there's Mastodon, Loops, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Miskey, etc, etc, etc...
@mike @quillmatiq @mmasnick hey Mike Fraser you were in the audience when I gave this talk at #Fedicon weren’t you?
https://bmannconsulting.com/notes/beyond-microblogging-atproto/
It has a list of some of the many projects in the ATProto ecosystem
Please don’t erase the #ATProto community. We’re on the same side.
@boris @quillmatiq @mmasnick I was Boris, I'm just not sold on atmosphere as fulfilling my personal requirements for an independent federated space. Simply too many roads run through BlueSky which I feel has been captured. In any other time I wouldn't be as sensitive to this as I am now however my country is under existential threat and I simply don't feel that atmosphere can be trusted. The fediverse though not perfect self regulates more effectively and independently.
@mike @quillmatiq @mmasnick that’s fine - but “not really moved the needle” is incorrect - there’s a sample of a dozen or so apps, out of many more.
All using the same protocol just like the AP ones you listed.
Go yell at Bluesky! It’s a company! They can do what they do and you can disagree.
The #ATProto community is building bottoms up.
It’s like saying you aren’t going to trust the email network because Gmail and Office365 are involved in routing email. This is how protocols work.
@boris @quillmatiq @mmasnick My comment is not simply in regards to the number of apps. It is in the number of apps that truly federate between each other and in heterogeneous environments. My original comment was meant to convey that BlueSky/AT folks often talk a lot about dectralization and federation but from what I can see from the outside looking in it seems like lip service.
@mike @quillmatiq @mmasnick all of the apps I listed and every account all federate with each other. There are over 2000 PDS hosts.
The data lives in every users account. Apps aggregate them as needed. It’s all connected and run by many people.
The criticism you are looking for is “Bluesky hosts too many of the accounts”…
…which the ATProto community is actively bottoms up growing. Yelling at us is not helping.
Got any suggestions? Want to donate? Support Blacksky, invest in Gander.
@boris @quillmatiq @mmasnick And if we're going to use the email analogy AT right now more resembles AOL email than SMTP.
@mike This is untrue. There are a number of independent apps across various verticals. Blogging: leaflet, pckt, offprint; Streaming: stream.place; Short-form video: spark; Git: tangled; and so many more, and none of them are directly dependent on Bluesky whatsoever.
This doesn't even count the microblogging competitors coming up that are full-stack independent of Bsky as well (Blacksky, Northsky, Gander, Eurosky etc.)
@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @quillmatiq this is partially true: yes, there are tons of cool atproto apps, and I'd say they span a wider range of things than are on the fediverse.
On the other hand, not all the things you mention as full stack are actually full stack, or even operational. They are also pretty small, so far. If you want to see how large some of these alternatives are, you can check out the "raw data" link under the Atmosphere on https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/
@ricci the only one I mentioned that isn't fully operational is Offprint, but even that had it's first blog launch this week.
Why would you say they're not full stack?
@mike @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @quillmatiq eurosky isn't running anything at all so far, not even a PDS so far as I can tell. Northsky runs a PDS, but uses Bluesky's relay and appview. I don't know about the others, except to say that they don't show up in the largest PDS lists.
Blacksky is the only one that's credibly full stack, and they opened beta access to their appview literally days ago.
There is a lot of buzz, and there is real stuff behind it, but it's also important to look at actual status and track it over time
@ricci oh! I specifically said "coming up" for that reason. My bad for the misunderstanding of your earlier reply.
@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick Can they post to each other?
@mike Yes. There's standard.site that's being worked on across the blogging platforms I mentioned, and there's lexicon.community, which is an independent board that helps simpler interop happen.
Apps can also interop with the permission of the user by using the data in their PDS. For instance, blento.app uses a user's data across apps to build a webpage of all your ATProto content, and they didn't have to work with any of the apps directly to make that happen.
@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick So interop is being worked on through third parties? There's different interop for different applications?
@mike Yup - highly recommend reading up on Lexicons in ATProto!
If you want a really deep dive, I'm a fan of Kuba's breakdown of the system: https://mackuba.eu/2025/08/20/introduction-to-atproto/
Feel like whenever this discussion is joined people start talking past each other.
It may be the case that the ATmosphere can be decentralized. And there may be small scale projects which test this potentiality. But the fact remains that it remains highly centralized.
Rob Ricci @ricci has developed a metric to address this matter
https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/
The purpose is not to dump on #Bluesky, but rather to establish meaningful context for these discussions.
@mastodonmigration I was specifically calling out not moving the needle, which the community (and Bluesky for that matter) most definitely is. There are far more fully independent apps and infra in the ATmosphere than folks here give credit for.
I'm not getting into the normal "decentralization" conversation because, yes, we'll talk past each other, and it's difficult to have a meaningful discussion about it here.
@quillmatiq @mastodonmigration @mmasnick @ricci My original comment was more about moving the needle in terms federated decentralized applications. No one Denies there's activity in the Atmosphere but does it fulfill the promise of independent but federated social media. In my mind it hasn't reached that high water mark.
@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @ricci
Understand that there are a lot of interesting and creative things going on with AT Proto.
The reason for referencing Rob's AWDY metric is to help with convos like the one between you and Mike. That is, he states it is not meaningfully decentralized and you reply with a list of apps and projects. He's talking about ground truth and you are addressing technological potential.
Perhaps decentralizable and decentralized, although that let's a lot of pushback.
@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @mastodonmigration by the way, I posted the Atmosphere equivalent this map over on Bluesky, or you can load the map and play around it, it's interactive and lets you select between the social networks and apply other filters
@quillmatiq @mike @mmasnick @ricci
So, while you are all here perhaps we should mention the issue of whether AT Proto is in fact really even "decentralizable".
The issue has been raised by @cwebber as to how the network scales geometrically as it goes wide. Have not seen anyone refute this.
https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/
This would render any real efforts to broadly decentralize effectively impossible. Have not seen anyone address this analysis.
Anyone?
RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115936504290083253
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
@mastodonmigration @quillmatiq @mmasnick And there was I, hoping this was a half–joke that would go away.
