2 days ago
- Open source has become dominant in shared infrastructure, similar to the current potential of open social.
- The AT Protocol (atproto) from Bluesky aims to give users ownership of their data, like personal websites did, but with social aggregation features.
- In closed social apps, user data is trapped in a company's database, making it difficult to leave without losing social connections and content.
- Open social allows users to own their handle via domain names and store data in personal repositories on the web, enabling portability.
- User data from different apps can coexist in the same repository, allowing apps to piggyback on each other's data without APIs.
- Aggregation works via relays that stream events from all repositories, allowing apps to build local caches for fast queries.
- Cryptographic signing ensures data integrity and trust in the network.
- The open social model blurs app boundaries, enabling remixing, forking, and reuse of data, reducing lock-in and cold-start problems.