@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.

@_elena So yes, ultimately I agree with you. Lumping ATP & AP into one big ball of yarn labeled "open social web" seems fairly ludicrious to me. The goals are so wildly different, I fear it's more harmful than helpful to attempt unifying these separate approaches.

@jaredwhite

Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 (@mackuba@martianbase.net)

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

Martian Base (martianbase.net)

@everton137 @mackuba Yeah, lots of folks are talking about how to migrate to a third-party PDS host, which is all fine and dandy but I'd still be reliant on Bluesky's infrastructure even if my own personal data is hosted elsewhere…which to me is not very compelling. I'm an all or nothing sorta guy…either I trust Bluesky enough that they can host all my stuff, or…I don’t trust them at all.

@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. ‍️

@mastodonmigration FYI: "Progress has also been made on formation of an independent PLC Organization, with an update to be shared at AtmosphereConf later this week." https://atproto.com/blog/2026-spring-roadmap

@_elena it’s possible to use mastodon/ ActivityPub oauth sign-in to register or even login to other platforms, without publicly linking the accounts. I just haven’t seen anyone do this.

@mackuba

Should be interesting

@django @_elena this is only 1/100th of what is enabled by the way that single sign on works in the atmosphere though...

@liaizon isn't the rest (single identity, single data store) precisely what @_elena was referring to as profiling (ie the dangerous part)

@_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.

Stefan Bohacek (@stefan@stefanbohacek.online)

Arguing whether Bluesky is "really" decentralized is increasingly becoming a moot point. "full-network atproto relay on a $4.20/mo VPS" https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u Running a PDS on a Raspberry Pi. https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-12-02-run-a-bluesky-pds-from-home/ "A Bluesky appview focused on low resource consumption" https://github.com/alnkesq/AppViewLite "full-scale indie atproto relay [...] $30 CAD/mo" https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3lne2wvr5hc2b #bluesky #fediverse

Stefan's Personal Mastodon Server (stefanbohacek.online)

@_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.)

@_elena Interesting point!

Personally, PDSes are one thing I really like about the Atmosphere/ATProto. Being able to log into multiple apps without needing to manage multiple accounts is pretty convenient, and enables more developer experimentation.

Here, you either create a new fediverse platform, meaning you need to create a new account, or maybe a Mastodon browser plugin or web app, because not many want to put in the effort to support all the different APIs.

@django @_elena mastodon doesn't do anything to protect your data from being slurped by anyone who might want it, so I find that argument a bit hard to believe. The sort of integration that has been enabled by seperating identity, data hosting and relay/search indexing makes the type of hodgepodge interoperability we have today in the fediverse look pretty unusable. I say this as someone who has been pushing for the fediverse for over a decade and who thinks VCs should be chased with pitchforks

@_elena@mastodon.social

I'm not too much of a fan of having to make an account on every service, when the promise of activitypub is being able to view youtube posts from twitter, it's annoying to have accounts on both a youtube and twitter to get a proper experience.

@_elena Also, have you read this?

An interview with @thisismisse…

An interview with @thisismissem@hachyderm.io from @APC@mastodon.social: [*FediMod FIRES on building better and decentralised social media applications*][1] (by @XavCC@todon.eu). > Probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned over the years of the Fediverse is that it depends almost entirely on volunteer labour. There are a few people that are paid full time to work on the Fediverse. But to actually get the things that you need, it very much largely depends on volunteer labour, because projects are either chasing funding through grants or they're chasing funding through their nations. And those demands can often be at odds with what people overall need or want. > > So that's probably the biggest learning from the Fediverse that I have: a lot of it is just run and funded by individuals and volunteers, which often means that it doesn't move as fast as more commercial operations. [1]: https://www.apc.org/en/news/fedimod-fires-building-better-and-decentralised-social-media-applications

(hollo.social)

Definitely not trying to say that the fediverse should in any way accept VC money. But we do need to figure out sustainable ways to fund all the work that's needed to be done.

Remember this, by the way?

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@jaredwhite @everton137

Yes, just to add, PDS is the easy part.

Here's a better way to view the network.

Bluesky network map

(atp.fyi)

@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.