GoKawiilSocial media was supposed to connect us, but most of it has turned into ads, division, and loneliness. I'm betting on ATProto as a way to fix that, and not just for developers. Whether you're a scientist, journalist, or just someone who wants the internet to feel human again, I think ATProto matters for you too.
I’m coming home from ATmosphereConf filled with hope and a renewed sense of purpose. I want to talk about why.
But first, some context.
The problem with social media as it exists today
I have strong opinions about social media. A lot of these come from reading books like The Chaos Machine and Careless People. I highly recommend both if this is something you’re interested in, but if you just want a high-level overview, the story goes something like this:
Many social platforms started as human-centered. Then they had to start making money. A lot of them chose the easy path: advertisements. Those advertisements created algorithms that drove engagement and kept people on the platforms. The platforms started A/B testing to get folks to spend more and more of their time scrolling, because the more time spent on the platform, the more ads they could show. Over time, the content that performed best was the most divisive, because that was what kept people looking, interested, and engaged.
The result is that social media has become, ironically, some of the loneliest places to be. When you open Instagram today, most of the content you see is advertisements and not posts from the actual people you’re trying to connect with. Users lose trust, genuine connection, and autonomy over how they spend their time as they become more addicted to these platforms.
I don’t think any social media platform was designed to do this. But it’s where most of them have ended up. If you open Facebook or Instagram or X (formerly Twitter), most of what you see is ads, hateful content, or mind-numbing videos designed to keep you entertained but not informed.
Another thing that makes this difficult is that these platforms are really hard to leave. Once you have a group or community connected on a platform, getting everybody to move at once is nearly impossible. Folks are used to these apps because the platforms have been designed to create habits that keep people coming back.
In mainstream social media platforms, you are the product. For that reason, I have mostly abstained from social media, except for the past couple of years where I’ve started to spend a little more time on Bluesky.
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