Why I am excited for ATProto

This is my first real blog post written in the Atmosphere for the Atmosphere. I know many of you might be thinking, what the heck is the Atmosphere and what what is ATProto? To start, ATProto is the protocol that Bluesky is built on. In short, it is a public highway of data that users control and developers can interact with. The Atmosphere is the collection of apps that use this protocol and the community that builds it.

Wait, users can control their own data?

Yes! Every user has an account on what is called a Personal Data Server or PDS. This server stores every like, post, and comment that you do on Bluesky. However, this PDS can hold other data too (like this exact blog post). This data has a schema called a lexicon which determine how apps can interact with that data. Lexicons are what enables interoperability. While Bluesky created the first Lexicons around microblogging, there exists lexicons today like standard.site for long-form content. (That is actually what Offprint uses under the hood). Every Bluesky user that created an account on Bluesky stores their data on the Bluesky PDS. However, you are able to move to other PDS' such as Blacksky or my personal favorite, selfhosted.social. Hell, you can even self-host your own PDS (its on the docket for me in the future).

That sounds cool, but why do I care?

This means that your data can easily be moved between apps. Fed up with Bluesky's UI? Try something like witchsky.app. Want to move your blog from one platform to another? Go for it. Any app that can read the lexicon can use that data for its own application. It is up to you to grant that app permissions to modify or use the data in your PDS.

Additionally, this means that if you get banned from Bluesky or censored on a platform, another app can still view and honor your data.

Okay, I am starting to see the picture, what apps are out there?

Great question! There are a ton. There are microblogging platforms like Bluesky and Blacksky, software forges like Tangled, and long-form blogging platforms like Leaflet and Offprint. There are also tools like graze.social for building custom feeds for Bluesky. All of these work because rather than building on a closed platform, developers get to build on a public and openly developed protocol.

Why am I so excited?

It is a new era of an open web. People are able to control their data without worrying about infrastructure or hosting a server. At the end of the day, you own your data in whatever way works for you. While this might not be enticing to users today, portability enables a new era of user empowerment, giving users the choice for how they want to interact with their data.

From open-source perspective, I am super excited to see open protocols drive new applications. Open-source thrives on collaboration and building communities; ATProto does both. In addition, it is exciting to see tools like Tangled, challenge the status quo of Git forges.

I think what I am truly excited to see is a community of developers in different circles collaborating for a common goal. This is why I got into software in the first place and it is sad to see that sentiment diminish over the course of my career. With this in mind, have fun! Build cool things!