Anuj Ahooja
RE: https://liberal.city/@wjmaggos/116426227781017098
Again, I, among many others, am working on user agency, not top down mandates about what technology everyone should use. People, not platforms includes "not protocols".
If you're still having arguments about protocols in 2026, you've already fell behind. Listen to the people or they will not listen to you, because they weren't last year or the year before or the year before that.
dansup
@quillmatiq We stan the protocol bridge gods ❤️
Anuj, it meant so much to me to meet you last year at FediCon, and I know I've struggled a bit with my own personal jealousy towards ATProto, but I'm reminded of the fact I met Ryan a decade ago in the #IndieWeb IRC channel and was in awe of the dedication they had to freeing everyone from the toxic silos.
It's not Bluesky vs Mastodon. It's giving people better Facebook/Instagram/X alternatives
We're on the same team. And you + Ryan are my heros❤️
Anuj Ahooja
You're telling people what your perfect protocol's world could look like. You should be listening. Listen more.
Anuj Ahooja
@dansup this side of the ecosystem wouldn't be where it is without you, man. Appreciate your evolution on these ideas 🤝🏼
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
Bridging helps a lot here -- it joins the Atmosphere with the Fediverse, so that we are effectively on one people network. Thanks for providing that important service.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com hello to all three of you.
William is talking about something really important: the network effect.
Having lots of small disconnected networks inhibits wider adoption.
Value in a communications network goes up by N^2. The value in two disconnected networks of equal size is (N^2 / 4) * 2, or half what the value would be if they interoperate.
dansup
@quillmatiq You are a huge inspiration, and we're so lucky to have such forward thinking and talented builders like you and Ryan to literally build bridges.
I hope you are attending FediCon this year, I'd love to have a beer and chat!
Thanks again for reminding us of how bright the future can be, you guys are the real heroes of the social web ❤️
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com but there are still other networks -- the developer and technology ecosystems around both protocols.
Those get split, too, when there are multiple protocols. And they're harder to bridge. There is some knowledge and value that can be shared between networks, and other information that's much more specific.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
One problem with network effect discussions is that we tend to assume that the people interested in a technology -- like distributed social networks -- would all be interested no matter what the platform or protocol is.
That's a naive assumption. If ATProto didn't exist, maybe some percentage of the current ATProto dev community would be building on ActivityPub, but probably not 100%.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I think it's also unlikely that the current ATproto developer community is going to disappear just because ActivityPub advocates point out that governance story on our ecosystem is much better, and the independence of our nodes is demonstrably higher.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I love the work I do, advocating for the ActivityPub network, building software and services to make it work better, and developing our protocol and extensions.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq sorry, I meant, it's *my* assumption! "If we only had one protocol, all those developers would be working together, generating value in one ecosystem." It's probably not true.
Anuj Ahooja
@evan that's not my assumption! In fact, one of the main reasons I care so deeply about bridging is to let people who build choose the technology they're comfortable with/excited about, and helping tap them into other networks. It's why we're getting more focused on bridging more lexicons, and why everyone I spoke with at AtmosphereConf is ready to bridge their lexicons where it makes sense.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I think if I were trying to thread the needle, I might say this: I think that ActivityPub provides the best developer platform for people interested in building on the social web. But I'd rather people build on ATproto than not build at all! And if they do build on ATproto, staying bridgeable, using shared lexicons, and other practices can make it easier for all of us to feel like we're in one big network.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com I'd also say, ATproto exists and isn't going away. So, what's best for everyone is for it to be as open and decentralised as it can be. That's why I went to IETF to speak out in favour of an ATproto working group.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I'll also say, it grinds my gears when people talk about downsides of the ActivityPub ecosystem, especially when they weren't designed in. It's hard to move from one server to another. It's hard to build a new kind of application. It's hard to bring your own domain to an account on someone else's server.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I really think the pressure drives us to be better, though.
There's no way to know if the benefits of that competition outweigh the benefits we could have with a single protocol ecosystem. It's hard to measure a counterfactual. It is what it is.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com so, I'm going to end this very long thread with a question:
How can we in the ActivityPub community provide a similar "service" for the ATmosphere?
That is, criticising the network in just enough of an annoying way that people work on those problems to spite us, but not in so much of an annoying way that they stop listening and shut us out entirely.
We clearly aren't there yet. It would be good to get closer, though.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com next time there's a blue sky outage, I want folks at Eurosky to gloat at me. "See, we're still running fine!" That's the kind of crow I want to eat.
Evan Prodromou
@quillmatiq@mastodon.social @quillmatiq@threads.net @quillmatiq.com
I think one way is highlighting the positive sides of the negative sides. When we say that it's not great that the entire network goes down when Bluesky is DDOS'd, we might want to add that we want Eurosky, Blacksky, and others to keep running through that kind of crisis.
Or when we say that the protocol is not open enough, well, let's say what parts of the stack we want to see go to IETF or other standards orgs next.
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