Bluesky - Building a Social Internet

serious problems with existing solutions that ATproto will eventually solve: - black box algorithms -> custom algo marketplace - spam -> custom spam filters and collaborative reputation graphs - de-platforming -> users cannot be disintermediated from their audience - monetization -> open data will foster competitive business models and degrade monopolies - misaligned incentives -> new social products will be forced to improve the users' lives as they cannot abuse monopoly status to farm attention - lack of innovation -> competitive app market will foster experimentation and open source community - data silos -> a network effect of networks effects will eventually compound the protocol's usefulness to the marginal user and app developer These are just the obvious initial benefits, there will likely be many more second and third-order effects that are difficult to predict now.

I'm really excited about the potential of Bluesky. It's potentially killer feature is that account portability is built-in at the protocol level. This will make it possible to jump ship to a better provider in the same way, if not better, that we can with email. It also has not been implemented yet, so it remains to be seen how well it will work. Earlier this year I read ["The Chaos Machine" by Max Fisher](https://amzn.to/48uELwZ). It's definitely the best book I have read this year and painted a somber picture of how social media, driven by a constant need for growth and advertising dollars, is largely responsible for the polarized post-truth world we find ourselves in. I highly recommend it. Switching social media from platforms to protocols seems like the bast path out of this mess. I can't went for next year when they begin federation. It seems like Bluesky are really trying to fix social media for the better. I'm optimistic they will succeed,