It's always fascinating to me that proponents of Activity Pub are always like, "Just use AP, it's better." Isn't the point of decentralization to have no single point of failure? Why doesn't that mean multiple protocols? Everyone who argues that point honestly just sounds salty to me.
Jul 16, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Why ActivityPub is the future
We often tout things like “Mastodon is based on open web protocols” as one of its advantages. I want to elaborate why exactly that’s a good thing.
How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
Recently due to various events (namely a lot of people getting off of X-Twitter), Bluesky has become a lot more popular, and excitement for its underlying protocol, ATProto, is growing. Since I worked on ActivityPub which connects together Mastodon, Sharkey, Peertube, GotoSocial, etc, etc, etc in the present-day fediverse, I often get asked whether or not I have opinions about ATProto vs ActivityPub, and the answer is that I do have opinions, but I am usually head-down focused on building what I hope to be the next generation of decentralized (social) networking tech, and so I keep to myself about such things except in private channels.
Decentralization Trade Offs in AT Protocol and ActivityPub DWeb Camp 2026
Christine Lemmer Webber is lead author and co-editor of the W3C ActivityPub specification. Daniel Holmgren is Head of Protocol at Bluesky, working on the AT Protocol specification at the IETF. Join us for a discussion on decentralization trade-offs and other design decisions in the two protocols, and what that means for different architectures, structures, and even future points of convergence. Moderated by Boris Mann
ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and more!
Talking about this article and how ActivityPub and AT Protocol are maybe not as different as people might think. We covered some slides to an unrecorded talk of mine, which explores a lot of things...
Decentralized Syndication — The Missing Internet Protocol
The Internet is decentralized by design. It came into being not at once, but in parts. New protocols were added on top of previous ones…
A conceptual model of ATProto and ActivityPub
If you were to design an open social networking protocol, what would that look like? Which metaphors and comparisons would you use to get a general idea of how the network functions? And what would you answer if people ask if your network is decentralised and federated?
AT Protocol, OAuth, and well, decentralization
I've been very happy with how Bluesky and AT Protocol as a whole is going, except for one thing: OAuth.
ActivityPub Won by Being Boring
At FediForum 2026, ActivityPub co-author Evan Prodromou explained why the protocol succeeded by staying deliberately ordinary and why the W3C's Q3 2026 revision needs to keep it that way.
Seeing the Politics of Decentralized Social Media Protocols
Calls to decentralize feed-based social media have been driven by concerns about the concentrated power of centralized platforms and their societal impact. In response, numerous decentralized social media protocols have emerged, each interpreting “decentralization” in a different way. We analyze four such protocols (ActivityPub, AT Protocol, Nostr, and Farcaster) drawing on protocol documentation, media coverage, direct usage, and semi-structured interviews with protocol developers and experts to situate each protocol within its socio-technical goals. To support this analysis, we develop a grounded lexicon that facilitates the description and comparison of analogous components across each protocol. With it, we show how each protocol distributes control over key components differently, shaping who holds power over critical aspects such as user identity, curation, and infrastructural ownership. By examining protocols as socio-technical artifacts, we show how they prioritize different values and make distinct trade-offs, providing CSCW researchers with a lens to more effectively evaluate and design future decentralized social media systems.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Many people are talking about decentralized social media protocols like #ActivityPub and #ATProto and all the amazing things one can do with them. But do you actually know how they work? We thought we'd do something about this. Come to #FediForum next week if you are curious and like to find […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social"If your decentralised protocol is missing features, the market will add them with centralisation." — @goat.navy *This*: - is why why the web was captured; - is why email became concentrated; - is why ActivityPub, as defined today, isn't capture-resistant.
Some of us in the ActivityPub world feel jealous of AtProto’s success (like me). But more decentralization is a win for everyone. With Bridgy from @anew.social connecting protocols, this isn’t competition, it’s momentum. We’re stronger together, so let’s build the social web humanity deserves 🚀
