Recently there has been a lot of discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol which has been quite dividing and heated.
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Recently there has been a lot of discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol which has been quite dividing and heated.
Yesterday at the Social Web CG meeting (the group that maintains the ActivityPub and related specifications), I proposed releasing a statement that counters the narrative that one of these protocols must win, when both protocols can co-exist and have a lot to learn from each other.
The statement has been co-signed by various members of both Social Web CG, SocialCG, and the AT Protocol community.
“We do not win by tearing each other down, which only emboldens and empowers those who do not want either protocol to succeed.”
“Arguing between us only emboldens those that seek to derail and destroy efforts to build an open social web.”
You can read the full statement here:
https://github.com/swicg/general/blob/master/statements/2025-09-05-activitypub-and-atproto-discourse.md@thisismissem No offense to anyone that has made any protocol, but I don't give a shit which protocol it is as long as it's an open protocol we can access openly, freely, forever. I think the fear with AT Protocol is that Bsky might enshitiffy it? I don't know enough about AT to even know if that's possible.
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@thisismissem No offense to anyone that has made any protocol, but I don't give a shit which protocol it is as long as it's an open protocol we can access openly, freely, forever. I think the fear with AT Protocol is that Bsky might enshitiffy it? I don't know enough about AT to even know if that's possible.
@firesidefedi yeah, one could argue that, but there's so many other people building in the AT Protocol ecosystem that it'd only affect maybe one part of the network, there already exists alternative AppViews, Clients, Relays, and PDS's, especially if we look at the wonderful work from the Blacksky team (blackskyweb.xyz)
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@nik I'd received multiple people saying yes, and been granted approval to merge. As it's not a specification change, the 14 day CFC did not look like it applied, and it did not need all members to agree or co-sign.
It is inappropriate to create a "statements" directory in the repository, with this as the only item in it, making it seem as if it was an official SWICG statement.
Things like these are, at the very least, called a "draft" until they officially pass. You are doing your cause (to which I object anyway) no favor with this fishy activity.
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@stefan that visualization isn't particularly great at showing how (de)centralized it is though.
Things are not to scale in it: Single user PDS is as much as 1/50th the area of a Bluesky Corporate PDS with almost 400,000 users.
@ikuturso @stefan @mastodonmigration @thisismissem
and?
if it enshittifies, people will simply migrate to other PDSes.
and those PDSes will start looking at different relays
the only thing i am concerned about is the appview thing, but i believe that deals with protocol content rather than any actual implementation (where the real nub of the control is)
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@ikuturso @stefan @mastodonmigration @thisismissem
and?
if it enshittifies, people will simply migrate to other PDSes.
and those PDSes will start looking at different relays
the only thing i am concerned about is the appview thing, but i believe that deals with protocol content rather than any actual implementation (where the real nub of the control is)
@breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
The problem is a matter of scale. There is no way for 99% of users to "simply" move anywhere.
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It is inappropriate to create a "statements" directory in the repository, with this as the only item in it, making it seem as if it was an official SWICG statement.
Things like these are, at the very least, called a "draft" until they officially pass. You are doing your cause (to which I object anyway) no favor with this fishy activity.
@tuxwise @nik I had reason to believe it was fine, anyway, it's been taken down and replaced with this statement: https://github.com/swicg/general/blob/master/statements/2025-09-05-activitypub-and-atproto-discourse.md
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@breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
The problem is a matter of scale. There is no way for 99% of users to "simply" move anywhere.
@mastodonmigration @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
aye, there's the rub
even on mastodon, migrating to another server is hard.
you have to follow a 50 step process, create another account, then move all your stuff...
it would be hella nice to have a one-click button that simply moves all your shit to another server.
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@breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
The problem is a matter of scale. There is no way for 99% of users to "simply" move anywhere.
@mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan Blacksky already recently managed a mass migration away from Bluesky hosted PDS's for their community. Similar could happen if needed for other communities.
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@mastodonmigration @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
aye, there's the rub
even on mastodon, migrating to another server is hard.
you have to follow a 50 step process, create another account, then move all your stuff...
it would be hella nice to have a one-click button that simply moves all your shit to another server.
@breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
Yes, that would be nice.
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@breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan @thisismissem
Yes, that would be nice.
@mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan this exists in the ATmosphere — https://tektite.cc/
and a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SdmiCRYeZA
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@ahltorp well, snyway, now you have the links, you can educate yourself on how much non-Bluesky PBC work is happening
@thisismissem @ahltorp please read up on TESCREAL. It is a very much not good thing. Anything where Dorsey, Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, Yudkowski, etc. had their fingers in is not good.
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@mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan Blacksky already recently managed a mass migration away from Bluesky hosted PDS's for their community. Similar could happen if needed for other communities.
@thisismissem @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan
Yes, the Blacksky migration was impressive. It still did not change the overall percentage distribution numbers very much. It seems like proponents of AT Protocol should welcome criticism of too much dominance of Bluesky PBC and support more independent Blacksky type efforts.
Why, if Bluesky is actually serious about wanting AT Protocol to be decentralized, is there not more overt support for moving the numbers in a truly meaningful way.
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@thisismissem @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan
Yes, the Blacksky migration was impressive. It still did not change the overall percentage distribution numbers very much. It seems like proponents of AT Protocol should welcome criticism of too much dominance of Bluesky PBC and support more independent Blacksky type efforts.
Why, if Bluesky is actually serious about wanting AT Protocol to be decentralized, is there not more overt support for moving the numbers in a truly meaningful way.
@mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan there's also NorthSky in Canada that's building on Blacksky's work, and I'm sure there'll be something similar in the EU too
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Recently there has been a lot of discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol which has been quite dividing and heated.
Yesterday at the Social Web CG meeting (the group that maintains the ActivityPub and related specifications), I proposed releasing a statement that counters the narrative that one of these protocols must win, when both protocols can co-exist and have a lot to learn from each other.
The statement has been co-signed by various members of both Social Web CG, SocialCG, and the AT Protocol community.
“We do not win by tearing each other down, which only emboldens and empowers those who do not want either protocol to succeed.”
“Arguing between us only emboldens those that seek to derail and destroy efforts to build an open social web.”
You can read the full statement here:
https://github.com/swicg/general/blob/master/statements/2025-09-05-activitypub-and-atproto-discourse.md@thisismissem i strongly disagree with this. bluesky is only decentralized on paper, and in reality, only a tiny fraction of its users aren't reliant on bluesky's hosting. if bsky.social suddenly disappears, almost all of ATProto goes down with it. the same can't be said about mastodon.social, which is the biggest instance, but the fediverse will survive if it suddenly disappears. according to https://arewedecentralizedyet.online, only 55,500 people are on non-bluesky owned PDSes, so blueksy could just (1/3)
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@mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan Blacksky already recently managed a mass migration away from Bluesky hosted PDS's for their community. Similar could happen if needed for other communities.
@thisismissem did they manage to get away from the did:plc dependency? Assuming not since there is no way to migrate those away from the PBC identity...
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@thisismissem did they manage to get away from the did:plc dependency? Assuming not since there is no way to migrate those away from the PBC identity...
@ikuturso @mastodonmigration @breathOfLife @stefan there's plenty of DID methods that have been developed; There are some people using did:web, there's also did:webvh — but there's definitely still more work to do in this space.
I think ActivityPub could theoretically adopt did:web or did:webvh as an alternative to webfinger.
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@thisismissem @ahltorp please read up on TESCREAL. It is a very much not good thing. Anything where Dorsey, Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, Yudkowski, etc. had their fingers in is not good.
@mirabilos @thisismissem @ahltorp And even without that, the choice of a copyright license also doesn't means anything about the ecosystem and it's architecture.
BlueSky is built for massive silos with technically allowing communication between them but that's an admin setting. -
@thisismissem i strongly disagree with this. bluesky is only decentralized on paper, and in reality, only a tiny fraction of its users aren't reliant on bluesky's hosting. if bsky.social suddenly disappears, almost all of ATProto goes down with it. the same can't be said about mastodon.social, which is the biggest instance, but the fediverse will survive if it suddenly disappears. according to https://arewedecentralizedyet.online, only 55,500 people are on non-bluesky owned PDSes, so blueksy could just (1/3)
@thisismissem turn off federation, and force everyone else back onto bluesky-owned PDSes. facebook did the same thing before. facebook messenger used to be part of XMPP, a decentralized instant messaging protocol, allowing people on FB messenger to message people who didn't use FB messenger. but one day, facebook just turned off federation (source: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/#:~:text=There%20is%20also%20a%20precedent,Facebook%20to%20switch%20off%20federation), cutting off people from outside messenger, and making it so messenger users could only chat with other messenger users(2/3)
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@thisismissem @breathOfLife @ikuturso @stefan
Yes, the Blacksky migration was impressive. It still did not change the overall percentage distribution numbers very much. It seems like proponents of AT Protocol should welcome criticism of too much dominance of Bluesky PBC and support more independent Blacksky type efforts.
Why, if Bluesky is actually serious about wanting AT Protocol to be decentralized, is there not more overt support for moving the numbers in a truly meaningful way.
@mastodonmigration @thisismissem @ikuturso @stefan
my comrade in christ
the reason that blacksky have their own relay implementation is because bluesky NEVER RELEASED THEIRS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
they left half the protocol unfinished in a deliberate attempt to centralize control.
then rudy fraser decided "fuck that" and proceeded to build atproto.africa, severely fucking that attempt six ways until sunday and putting atproto on the map as a serious protocol as opposed to a complete joke.
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@mirabilos @thisismissem @ahltorp And even without that, the choice of a copyright license also doesn't means anything about the ecosystem and it's architecture.
BlueSky is built for massive silos with technically allowing communication between them but that's an admin setting.@lanodan @mirabilos @ahltorp you mean MIT / Apache 2.0 license? https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
The social-app repository is also under what appears to be a MIT license except where explicitly noted otherwise.
And Blacksky's rsky is under Apache license: https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/rsky/blob/main/LICENSE
