Discussion
@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 the Rob's AWDY metric is to for 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.
This is a forward thinking server running the Bonfire social media platform.
LGBTQA+ and BPOC friendly.
