There Are No Instances in atproto — overreacted
13 hours ago
- atproto does not use 'instances'; instances are a Mastodon concept that conflates hosting and apps.
- atproto separates hosting from aggregation, similar to RSS and Google Reader, where content lives on personal hosting and apps aggregate it.
- In atproto, users can swap hosting freely and build new apps without being tied to a single platform.
- Centralized social media (e.g., Facebook) encloses users in one space, while federated systems like Mastodon use instances that exchange data, creating issues like identity tied to instances and O(n²) scaling.
- Decentralization in atproto is achieved through hosting portability and app diversity, not through the number of instances.