Every time someone threatens not to use an atproto app I think about a dinner I had where a Threads dev told me they onboard the entirety of the Bluesky/Atmosphere user base every single day. And Threads comes up in casual conversation I have with people. So im curious
Rude1 Haunted Badness. ⁂
What do you like about Threads?
Apr 12, 2026 at 12:51 PM
ATProto's Application Primacy
The amount of chatter from ATmosphere developers around an “everything app” has me thinking of an article from almost exactly 10 years ago. Back in 2016, Joel Monegro at USV wrote about “fat protocols
There are no instances in ATProto | Hacker News
I feel like you've (perhaps purposefully?) misinterpreted "instances" just to plug ATProto specifically at the expense of ActivityPub (and RSS, a bit). I think you lower yourself by doing this:
atproto-comments
Renders an AT Protocol (Bluesky) thread as a comment section. Supports SSR, sign-in, replies, and live updates.
ATProto explainer thread from a non-Bluesky app/service’s perspective
rpg.actor
Very glad you asked! Bluesky runs on tech called AT Protocol, which lets you use that same account on sites like rpg.actor via process called OAuth which keeps your password away from our server. Login actually takes you to a bsky.social page that lists what read / write our site wants in to use:
some thoughts on atproto as a post-app paradigm
Ecosystem Plugins
notes.wesleyfinck.orgImagine all the times you’ve downloaded a one-off app for a conference where you made all valuable connections with colleagues only to never use the app again. We could integrate the conference experience into your professional networks on the Atmosphere. ATproto can make networking so much better.
Ariel M. (she/her)
conferences conferences conferences cc @richferro.com @mariaa.bsky.social we deserve better than 2-star rating conference apps lmao
the point of atproto is to make locked-open apps. apps which are constrained such that they cannot be e.g. bought by billionaires and ruined. yes, doing non-atproto things "enables app developers to do more". yes, non-atproto is "more intuitive" and "it sucks" when you hit atproto's limits.
A lot of the devs on atproto on here seem to be like, why won't any users use my stuff well, bc a not inconsiderable amount of current atproto users on bluesky are artists and marginalized people and you have a fuckass chatgpt ghibli pfp. I cannot emphasize this enough, you are signaling you don't
I'm thinking about how non-developers will feel about atproto. For example, will it take people by surprise that data entered into one app can show up somewhere else? More thoughts in this post.
How do we talk about atproto to non-developers? | Rachel Andrew
rachelandrew.co.ukThis is partly why I think atproto needs a more convincing vision about being a post-app protocol. A future where atproto is a bunch of apps and each app governs their own lexicon diminishes a lot of its potential in the long-term.
Laurens
yeah i think i might actually, theres a very interesting story here that the main thing that matters is a focal point around which consensus over a lexicon can get formed
Hot take but I think it’s problematic for atproto that lots of developers i see talking about making stuff focus mostly on things absolutely no end user gives a shit about to fuel their protocols and architecture fetish, and it’s a failure there isn’t another app with like 100k+ users active even.
