5 ms·

Bluesky's AT Protocol: Pros and Cons for Developers

118 points by steveklabnik 2y ago

tedunangst 2y ago
Are there any examples of apps that bluesky's 13 million users can login to?
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  The best known ones right now are: * Hacker News clone: https://frontpage.fyi/ https://frontpage.fyi/ * Events app: https://smokesignal.events/ https://smokesignal.events/ * Blog platform: https://whtwnd.com/ https://whtwnd.com/ There's toooons of alternative clients, but that's not the same thing as "independent application."
  - chabalatabala 2y ago
    All these are hardcoded to serve centralized content from bluesky's backend indexer right? if bluesky the company goes down, there's nothing to see right? If so, I think AT protocol needs to figure out how to make community hosted infrastructure easy, affordable, *and popular* before doing anything else, because it seems like it's just growing to serve Bluesky's app, and that's a flawed perspective of development for something like a general use decentralized social protocol. I just feel like if bitcoin people weren't the norm on nostr, there wouldnt' be much of a case for bluesky. nostr pretty much opens up possibilities and is living currently in a proven and actively scaling decentralized ecosystem.
    - chabalatabala 2y ago
      Update: It seems yes there is no real decentralization in infrastructure. However it's great to see the eye is still on target: https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/ https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/ . Sending good luck vibes to AT Protocol team for these goals to be reached.
- 808nrlnd303 2y ago
  https://graysky.app/ https://graysky.app/
querez 2y ago
As someone who's currently on the brink of signing up to bluesky: what's the recommended way of picking a handle, then? Are there any downsides to going with a normal `@name.bsky.social` thing first and later switching if I feel there is a need? Or should I best use my own domain from the get go?
- pfraze 2y ago
  Nope, you can switch domains at any point. It'll break web links to your profile, but the network won't struggle to keep track of who you are. The reason for this is that domain names are aliases. Your permanent ID is the DID, which the domain name maps to.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    AFAIK currently the only supported DIDs are web DIDs and placeholders that the docs indicate are intended to be temporary until there's something better and more decentralised to replace them. Basedon that description, I'm not so sure about their permanence. At least, that's what people have been saying, the docs don't seem to mention that (anymore?) so maybe the placeholders weren't really placeholders after all. The npm package still mention placeholders (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@atproto/plc?activeTab=readme https://www.npmjs.com/package/@atproto/plc?activeTab=readme) but the up to date Github uses "Public Ledger of Credentials" as a backronym (https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc). Based on the docs it seems like a web DID is technically just as valid a permanent DID as a placeholder DID, though that depends on the server implementation of course.
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  It's truly up to you. Swapping to your domain won't affect anything, so you can do so whenever you'd like. I was known as steveklabnik.bsky.social for a couple of weeks before I changed it to steveklabnik.com.
motohagiography 2y ago
I would seriously consider building my next startup using AT, but how does bluesky solve the problem of building your castle in another man's kingdom? if I do something controversial or using regulatory arbitrage, I'm interested in how AT is useful for managing that risk.
- cowsup 2y ago
  > how does bluesky solve the problem of building your castle in another man's kingdom? Bluesky (the platform) doesn't, and they acknowledge that. It's centrally owned, and is prone to all of the risks that any other centralized platform offers. > if I do something controversial or using regulatory arbitrage, I'm interested in how AT is useful for managing that risk. AT is completely decentralized, like email. If your account is @motohagiography.example.com, other AT instances will make a DNS query to example.com to see if that has an entry that the AT protocol recognizes. If so, it will make a connection to that instance, and gather your content for display. However, if a particular instance sees their a volume of unwanted accounts from example.com, they could blacklist that domain from interacting with their instance, so, even with this setup, you are at the mercy of the "big players" respecting you — just like if you try to send email to users using Gmail and Google decides you're suspect. And, if you violate the laws of where you're located, law enforcement will handle that the same as they would if you violating the laws over HTTP or over email.
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  A useful mental model for AT is the web: * Your PDS is like your own website. * Bluesky is like a search engine. * plc.directory is like DNS. If you choose to have someone host your own web site, then it's up to them what happens to it. You're using their servers after all. If you have your own host, you get to decide what happens there. Likewise, a search engine can say "hey, I don't like what's happening on that website, so I won't surface it in results," but they cannot shut your website down. Now, the only twist here is that currently, atproto is kind of like if there was only one real DNS server, and it was also owned by your search engine. That is, BlueSky the company runs plc.directory. So in the maximal sense, "if you run your own server" is technically "and you only get an IP address, not a domain name," that is, if plc.directory decides to unlist you, then folks can't find your posts. There is an alternative to plc.directory, but basically nobody actually uses it at the moment. Okay, so on a technical level, that's the rough explanation. On the social level: Here's what they have to say: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/atproto#speech-reach-and-moderation https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/atproto#speech-re... > Atproto's model is that speech and reach should be two separate layers, built to work with each other. The “speech” layer should remain permissive, distributing authority and designed to ensure everyone has a voice. The “reach” layer lives on top, built for flexibility and designed to scale. > The base layer of atproto (personal data repositories and federated networking) creates a common space for speech where everyone is free to participate, analogous to the Web where anyone can put up a website. The indexing services then enable reach by aggregating content from the network, analogous to a search engine. On the PDSes that Bluesky hosts, they will remove illegal content, but nothing else. That's the "speech" part. However, they do moderate Bluesky itself, and there's a gradient there: they will remove some things, they will also tag some things, allowing users to decide if they want to see it or not. As far as the "DNS problem," they've stated that they wish to move it into an external foundation, to build additional safeguards there. I personally believe them, because they have promised many things, including things that have reduced their own power and control over the network, many times, and then followed through. You can choose to believe them or not, or wait until it's the case before getting invovled.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
After some insightful sharing from Bsky devs in some other threads on here I am definitely reconsidering it....especially around the usefulness of the domain-centric identity model. But I remain concerned about Bsky developing their features slowly in the open. Which leaves it lacking (if you're looking to hit the ground running with a full fledged social network, not repeat the years of growth from early twitter), and also open to weird loopholes like some ppl realized you could use an archive of tweets with some scripts from a dev on github and backdate posts into Bluesky. Meaning you could write wacky tweets like from Sept 11 2001 etc and they're all sitting there on the network like they 'happened' weirdly with comments from 2024. And one of the developers in the replies of one of the jokey posts alarmingly saying we need to fix this ... in March 2024 (not yet fixed, still being exploited). As Doctorow writes, putting the energy into building up your contact list all over again is not appealing at all and so remain wary of this. Similar reasons not to go all in on Mastodon which wasn't it or any of the other centralized Twitter clones that popped up a year or two ago which have now started to shut down etc.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  > and also open to weird loopholes like some ppl realized you could use an archive of tweets with some scripts from a dev on github and backdate posts into Bluesky. Meaning you could write wacky tweets like from Sept 11 2001 etc and they're all sitting there on the network like they 'happened' weirdly with comments from 2024 This sounds like a critical issue that should've been fixed as soon as possible.
  - ChrisArchitect 2y ago
    of course. while I do appreciate the advantages it might offer for quick migration/onboarding...(how great to migrate your entire twitter history into place) to get a bunch of ppl onto the network, but it being abused to change history is a no-no. I'm all for open web/indie web/ability to move your data around but let's not pretend ppl were on Blue Sky for a decade. Sigh.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
alsetmusic 2y ago
Ed Zitron has an interview with Mike Masnick (Techdirt, board member of Bluesky) on the latest ep of the Better Offline[0] podcast. Pretty interesting, though I wasn't entirely convinced that Bluesky will deliver the solution we need. But it's encouraging to see progress in the various efforts to wrest control of the web from big corporations. I'm a fediverse fan, myself. [0] https://www.betteroffline.com https://www.betteroffline.com
- _mlbt 2y ago
  My concerns with Bluesky are less technical and more about the type of community it will have. Nearly all large internet communities have become partisan echo chambers. My concern with Bluesky is that at this point it seems to be mostly a refuge for leftist Twitter/X refugees. I wish there was a major platform with diversity of thought. Echo chambers are terrible for thoughtful discussion. If anyone knows of a community where moderates or a relatively balanced mix of liberal and conservative thinkers hang out online I'd love to hear about it.
  - sigmar 2y ago
    I haven't used bluesky, but can't you just go to different sites/forums for discussions with different people? This seems to me like complaining about a lack of oil painters on hackernews, when deviantart is just a few clicks away
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      Vigorous discussion between different viewpoints is completely different than multiple polar opposite echo chambers. Take reddit for example, you have /r/politics that downvotes, deletes, and shadow bans all conservative voices out of existence, and /r/conservative that does the same thing for liberal voices. I'd like a place where thoughtful discussion of all viewpoints, left, right, and center are not just tolerated, but encouraged.
      - sigmar 2y ago
S0y 2y ago
>Right now, there aren’t a lot of other apps in the ATmopshere, but there are experiments happening. There’s a blogging tool called WhiteWind, a Reddit clone called frontpage.fyi, and an events app called Smoke Signal. More will follow, I’m sure. The unfortunate thing about ATproto is that even tho there are these apps that are built on top of it. None of these app actually talk to each other. Bluesky the app has no idea what you're posting on WhiteWind and vice versa. This is the BIG advantage ActivityPub has over AT. A Mastodon account can follow accounts on any ActivityPub compatible server and they're able to talk to each other. You can follow a peertube channel or some AP enabled wordpress blog and it'll all be visible and intractable inside your Mastodon feed. At the moment, ATproto to me, seems a lot more like a glorified oAuth system than anything else. It's a lot like using your google account to login on an app and then have your data stored in google drive (your PDS).
- pfraze 2y ago
  There's nothing substantively stopping that from happening, it's just that bluesky and the other app devs haven't used each others schemas to trigger it. For instance, if frontpage really wanted to, they could publish stories as bluesky-schema posts. It just doesn't produce a win yet. There's some discussion about introducing some schemas that would make that worth doing.
  - S0y 2y ago
    I think the fact that devs even have to think about using "each others schemas" is a pretty big flaw in the system. It would definitely make ATProto look a lot better if it had a standardized way for all of its app to talk to each other. You don't want devs to have to implement new schemas for each and every new app that pops up on AT just so they can communicate with each other. Like, it would be pretty dang cool if you could follow a WhiteWind blog from your Bluesky account. Honestly I'm a bit confused as to why this isn't a priority for the Bsky team.
    - pfraze 2y ago
      It's actually quite important that you can introduce new schemas! It's entirely up to WhiteWind whether they use bluesky's follow schemas or not. There's no blocker on that. The only question they have to ask is whether that's how they want it to work. Another option that's available for them/others is to read from the bluesky follows to provide suggestions, but then use another schema for subscriptions.
tony-allan 2y ago
How to Set your Domain as your Handle [1] I successfully changed my handle to @tony.apms.com.au / at://tony.apms.com.au [2] [1] https://blueskyweb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19001802873101-How-to-Set-your-Domain-as-your-Handle https://blueskyweb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19001802873... [2] https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/did:plc:aey2msnboqkmg377toujvdj7 https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/did:plc:aey2msnboqkmg3...
jimmytucson 2y ago
Wait, can we just use HTTP and DNS? I’ll register a domain name and put my HTML or CGI application on a “box” and we’ll all party like it’s 1999. What am I missing?
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  While I also believe the world would work just fine if we all just followed each other's RSS feeds, people want something more collective, where a thousand or a million people can interact with each other's content. Centralized bulletin boards are one way, but no one wants to host and moderate a public website anymore, takes work. Web 2.0 was all about platforms taking the hosting and account management off your back so anyone can create a discussion group or simply post into the void without any technical know how
burgerrito 2y ago
*AT Protocol
tracerbulletx 2y ago
It's cool technology, and the feeling there is currently pretty good, but if it actually gets main stream popularity is there anything to stop the propagandists, rage baiters, and advertisers from just moving over? Open also means highly automatable, and not private.

118 points by steveklabnik 2y ago

tedunangst 2y ago

Are there any examples of apps that bluesky's 13 million users can login to?

steveklabnik 2y ago
The best known ones right now are: * Hacker News clone: https://frontpage.fyi/ https://frontpage.fyi/ * Events app: https://smokesignal.events/ https://smokesignal.events/ * Blog platform: https://whtwnd.com/ https://whtwnd.com/ There's toooons of alternative clients, but that's not the same thing as "independent application."
- chabalatabala 2y ago
  All these are hardcoded to serve centralized content from bluesky's backend indexer right? if bluesky the company goes down, there's nothing to see right? If so, I think AT protocol needs to figure out how to make community hosted infrastructure easy, affordable, *and popular* before doing anything else, because it seems like it's just growing to serve Bluesky's app, and that's a flawed perspective of development for something like a general use decentralized social protocol. I just feel like if bitcoin people weren't the norm on nostr, there wouldnt' be much of a case for bluesky. nostr pretty much opens up possibilities and is living currently in a proven and actively scaling decentralized ecosystem.
  - chabalatabala 2y ago
    Update: It seems yes there is no real decentralization in infrastructure. However it's great to see the eye is still on target: https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/ https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/ . Sending good luck vibes to AT Protocol team for these goals to be reached.
808nrlnd303 2y ago
https://graysky.app/ https://graysky.app/

querez 2y ago

As someone who's currently on the brink of signing up to bluesky: what's the recommended way of picking a handle, then? Are there any downsides to going with a normal `@name.bsky.social` thing first and later switching if I feel there is a need? Or should I best use my own domain from the get go?

pfraze 2y ago
Nope, you can switch domains at any point. It'll break web links to your profile, but the network won't struggle to keep track of who you are. The reason for this is that domain names are aliases. Your permanent ID is the DID, which the domain name maps to.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  AFAIK currently the only supported DIDs are web DIDs and placeholders that the docs indicate are intended to be temporary until there's something better and more decentralised to replace them. Basedon that description, I'm not so sure about their permanence. At least, that's what people have been saying, the docs don't seem to mention that (anymore?) so maybe the placeholders weren't really placeholders after all. The npm package still mention placeholders (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@atproto/plc?activeTab=readme https://www.npmjs.com/package/@atproto/plc?activeTab=readme) but the up to date Github uses "Public Ledger of Credentials" as a backronym (https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc). Based on the docs it seems like a web DID is technically just as valid a permanent DID as a placeholder DID, though that depends on the server implementation of course.
steveklabnik 2y ago
It's truly up to you. Swapping to your domain won't affect anything, so you can do so whenever you'd like. I was known as steveklabnik.bsky.social for a couple of weeks before I changed it to steveklabnik.com.

motohagiography 2y ago

I would seriously consider building my next startup using AT, but how does bluesky solve the problem of building your castle in another man's kingdom? if I do something controversial or using regulatory arbitrage, I'm interested in how AT is useful for managing that risk.

cowsup 2y ago
> how does bluesky solve the problem of building your castle in another man's kingdom? Bluesky (the platform) doesn't, and they acknowledge that. It's centrally owned, and is prone to all of the risks that any other centralized platform offers. > if I do something controversial or using regulatory arbitrage, I'm interested in how AT is useful for managing that risk. AT is completely decentralized, like email. If your account is @motohagiography.example.com, other AT instances will make a DNS query to example.com to see if that has an entry that the AT protocol recognizes. If so, it will make a connection to that instance, and gather your content for display. However, if a particular instance sees their a volume of unwanted accounts from example.com, they could blacklist that domain from interacting with their instance, so, even with this setup, you are at the mercy of the "big players" respecting you — just like if you try to send email to users using Gmail and Google decides you're suspect. And, if you violate the laws of where you're located, law enforcement will handle that the same as they would if you violating the laws over HTTP or over email.
steveklabnik 2y ago
A useful mental model for AT is the web: * Your PDS is like your own website. * Bluesky is like a search engine. * plc.directory is like DNS. If you choose to have someone host your own web site, then it's up to them what happens to it. You're using their servers after all. If you have your own host, you get to decide what happens there. Likewise, a search engine can say "hey, I don't like what's happening on that website, so I won't surface it in results," but they cannot shut your website down. Now, the only twist here is that currently, atproto is kind of like if there was only one real DNS server, and it was also owned by your search engine. That is, BlueSky the company runs plc.directory. So in the maximal sense, "if you run your own server" is technically "and you only get an IP address, not a domain name," that is, if plc.directory decides to unlist you, then folks can't find your posts. There is an alternative to plc.directory, but basically nobody actually uses it at the moment. Okay, so on a technical level, that's the rough explanation. On the social level: Here's what they have to say: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/atproto#speech-reach-and-moderation https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/atproto#speech-re... > Atproto's model is that speech and reach should be two separate layers, built to work with each other. The “speech” layer should remain permissive, distributing authority and designed to ensure everyone has a voice. The “reach” layer lives on top, built for flexibility and designed to scale. > The base layer of atproto (personal data repositories and federated networking) creates a common space for speech where everyone is free to participate, analogous to the Web where anyone can put up a website. The indexing services then enable reach by aggregating content from the network, analogous to a search engine. On the PDSes that Bluesky hosts, they will remove illegal content, but nothing else. That's the "speech" part. However, they do moderate Bluesky itself, and there's a gradient there: they will remove some things, they will also tag some things, allowing users to decide if they want to see it or not. As far as the "DNS problem," they've stated that they wish to move it into an external foundation, to build additional safeguards there. I personally believe them, because they have promised many things, including things that have reduced their own power and control over the network, many times, and then followed through. You can choose to believe them or not, or wait until it's the case before getting invovled.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

After some insightful sharing from Bsky devs in some other threads on here I am definitely reconsidering it....especially around the usefulness of the domain-centric identity model. But I remain concerned about Bsky developing their features slowly in the open. Which leaves it lacking (if you're looking to hit the ground running with a full fledged social network, not repeat the years of growth from early twitter), and also open to weird loopholes like some ppl realized you could use an archive of tweets with some scripts from a dev on github and backdate posts into Bluesky. Meaning you could write wacky tweets like from Sept 11 2001 etc and they're all sitting there on the network like they 'happened' weirdly with comments from 2024. And one of the developers in the replies of one of the jokey posts alarmingly saying we need to fix this ... in March 2024 (not yet fixed, still being exploited). As Doctorow writes, putting the energy into building up your contact list all over again is not appealing at all and so remain wary of this. Similar reasons not to go all in on Mastodon which wasn't it or any of the other centralized Twitter clones that popped up a year or two ago which have now started to shut down etc.

BadHumans 2y ago
> and also open to weird loopholes like some ppl realized you could use an archive of tweets with some scripts from a dev on github and backdate posts into Bluesky. Meaning you could write wacky tweets like from Sept 11 2001 etc and they're all sitting there on the network like they 'happened' weirdly with comments from 2024 This sounds like a critical issue that should've been fixed as soon as possible.
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  of course. while I do appreciate the advantages it might offer for quick migration/onboarding...(how great to migrate your entire twitter history into place) to get a bunch of ppl onto the network, but it being abused to change history is a no-no. I'm all for open web/indie web/ability to move your data around but let's not pretend ppl were on Blue Sky for a decade. Sigh.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago

alsetmusic 2y ago

Ed Zitron has an interview with Mike Masnick (Techdirt, board member of Bluesky) on the latest ep of the Better Offline[0] podcast. Pretty interesting, though I wasn't entirely convinced that Bluesky will deliver the solution we need. But it's encouraging to see progress in the various efforts to wrest control of the web from big corporations. I'm a fediverse fan, myself. [0] https://www.betteroffline.com https://www.betteroffline.com

_mlbt 2y ago
My concerns with Bluesky are less technical and more about the type of community it will have. Nearly all large internet communities have become partisan echo chambers. My concern with Bluesky is that at this point it seems to be mostly a refuge for leftist Twitter/X refugees. I wish there was a major platform with diversity of thought. Echo chambers are terrible for thoughtful discussion. If anyone knows of a community where moderates or a relatively balanced mix of liberal and conservative thinkers hang out online I'd love to hear about it.
- sigmar 2y ago
  I haven't used bluesky, but can't you just go to different sites/forums for discussions with different people? This seems to me like complaining about a lack of oil painters on hackernews, when deviantart is just a few clicks away
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    Vigorous discussion between different viewpoints is completely different than multiple polar opposite echo chambers. Take reddit for example, you have /r/politics that downvotes, deletes, and shadow bans all conservative voices out of existence, and /r/conservative that does the same thing for liberal voices. I'd like a place where thoughtful discussion of all viewpoints, left, right, and center are not just tolerated, but encouraged.
    - sigmar 2y ago

S0y 2y ago

>Right now, there aren’t a lot of other apps in the ATmopshere, but there are experiments happening. There’s a blogging tool called WhiteWind, a Reddit clone called frontpage.fyi, and an events app called Smoke Signal. More will follow, I’m sure. The unfortunate thing about ATproto is that even tho there are these apps that are built on top of it. None of these app actually talk to each other. Bluesky the app has no idea what you're posting on WhiteWind and vice versa. This is the BIG advantage ActivityPub has over AT. A Mastodon account can follow accounts on any ActivityPub compatible server and they're able to talk to each other. You can follow a peertube channel or some AP enabled wordpress blog and it'll all be visible and intractable inside your Mastodon feed. At the moment, ATproto to me, seems a lot more like a glorified oAuth system than anything else. It's a lot like using your google account to login on an app and then have your data stored in google drive (your PDS).

pfraze 2y ago
There's nothing substantively stopping that from happening, it's just that bluesky and the other app devs haven't used each others schemas to trigger it. For instance, if frontpage really wanted to, they could publish stories as bluesky-schema posts. It just doesn't produce a win yet. There's some discussion about introducing some schemas that would make that worth doing.
- S0y 2y ago
  I think the fact that devs even have to think about using "each others schemas" is a pretty big flaw in the system. It would definitely make ATProto look a lot better if it had a standardized way for all of its app to talk to each other. You don't want devs to have to implement new schemas for each and every new app that pops up on AT just so they can communicate with each other. Like, it would be pretty dang cool if you could follow a WhiteWind blog from your Bluesky account. Honestly I'm a bit confused as to why this isn't a priority for the Bsky team.
  - pfraze 2y ago
    It's actually quite important that you can introduce new schemas! It's entirely up to WhiteWind whether they use bluesky's follow schemas or not. There's no blocker on that. The only question they have to ask is whether that's how they want it to work. Another option that's available for them/others is to read from the bluesky follows to provide suggestions, but then use another schema for subscriptions.

tony-allan 2y ago

How to Set your Domain as your Handle [1] I successfully changed my handle to @tony.apms.com.au / at://tony.apms.com.au [2] [1] https://blueskyweb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19001802873101-How-to-Set-your-Domain-as-your-Handle https://blueskyweb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19001802873... [2] https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/did:plc:aey2msnboqkmg377toujvdj7 https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/did:plc:aey2msnboqkmg3...

jimmytucson 2y ago

Wait, can we just use HTTP and DNS? I’ll register a domain name and put my HTML or CGI application on a “box” and we’ll all party like it’s 1999. What am I missing?

jazzyjackson 2y ago
While I also believe the world would work just fine if we all just followed each other's RSS feeds, people want something more collective, where a thousand or a million people can interact with each other's content. Centralized bulletin boards are one way, but no one wants to host and moderate a public website anymore, takes work. Web 2.0 was all about platforms taking the hosting and account management off your back so anyone can create a discussion group or simply post into the void without any technical know how

burgerrito 2y ago

*AT Protocol

tracerbulletx 2y ago

It's cool technology, and the feeling there is currently pretty good, but if it actually gets main stream popularity is there anything to stop the propagandists, rage baiters, and advertisers from just moving over? Open also means highly automatable, and not private.