I finally got how ATProto works on a basic conceptual level from this paper
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03239
Having been none the wiser from reading the spec and other confused ppl on hacker news
That's my first gripe with Bluesky
Nostr and ActivityPub can both be understood in 5 minutes from reading their specs
ActivityPub is particularly well written
And it's not that ATProto is conceptually complex
But anyways, I appreciated the architecture of ATProto from a pure architecture point of view
But I think it's flawed in practical terms
Decentralization is small, many, cheap
ATProto is expensive
To develop applications for
And to run services on
And increasingly so the more decentralized it becomes
It's got a natural brake on decentralization
I'm going to sign up for Bluesky as I'm curious what the culture is like
Be interested to read your article!