GoKawiilEvery single time a post about atproto hits Hacker News, somebody asks in the comments: “But where are all the Bluesky instances?”. The problem is, there are no instances in atproto! The question is a category error. Instances are a Mastodon-brained concept, and I wanted something I can link to that explains this clearly.
So this is that post.
I know RSS is still being used somewhere (podcasts?!) but its heyday is arguably behind. Which is a shame. For a few years, which some of us might fondly remember as the golden age of the web, it felt like blogging was a cool thing.
Now look at this picture because it’s going to be important:
alice's blog cat's blog bob's blog google reader feedly
As a reminder, you publish stuff on your own blog, which you can either self-host or host on a popular blogging platform. But then everyone’s stuff gets aggregated into apps like Google Reader and Feedly, or collective blogs like Monologue (RIP).
Note that hosting and aggregation are two separate things. Your posts don’t “live” in an app like Google Reader. Apps are mere projections of the Blogosphere.
Seriously, make sure this thought sears into your brain; it’s going to be essential.
Here’s what you could call an evolution of this concept.
We put a box around the whole thing so that everyone is enclosed in the same space so we can show ads and stuff. Also, let’s leave only one app (we can let alternative apps live for a while, but not for long). That’s traditional social media.
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