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Comment by 1dom

> Every 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.

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:

1. it forces you to omit and contort the interesting technical truths about ATProto and Activitypub, like Relays and their pros/cons for ATProto and account migrations and pros/cons for ActivityPub

2. it creates unnecessary conflict and criticism and seems unnecessarily divisive for 2 platforms solving problems in such a similar space

It's also just seems a bit silly: why would you assume that when someone asks "where are the instances?" they're not using the common mainstream use of the word "instances", like, servers, or running software, or VMs, or containers?

Sorry if this is overly harsh or I've misunderstood, but it gives me a strong vibe that it was motivated by disdain and frustration towards ActivityPub and ActivityPub users rather than wanting to legitimately inform the world about ActivityPub.

I did enjoy the diagrams and the explainers though! I just felt like the subtle digs and pops at activitypub were an unnecessary distraction.

parent 1dom 4 months ago

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