[HN Gopher] I was right about ATProto key management
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       I was right about ATProto key management
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 77 points
       Date   : 2026-01-25 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (notes.nora.codes)
 (TXT) w3m dump (notes.nora.codes)
        
       | skybrian wrote:
       | It's written in anger, but I'm optimistic that this will
       | eventually get fixed, and documenting bad experiences like this
       | will help.
        
       | arjie wrote:
       | My experience using ATProto is that it is somewhat like how the
       | nascent blockchain apps were when they first came out: there's no
       | written content that is viable. Instead, you're supposed to use
       | ephemeral conversations and read a widely disparate set of notes
       | in order to use it. In the end, the upshot of all this is that
       | you get to use a slightly worse form of Twitter - which is
       | already rather unpleasant to use for me because there's a lot of
       | rage content there.
       | 
       | Microblogs are fun, and very often I can't justify a whole blog
       | post, but I have seen that others just post their thoughts
       | intermingled and it makes me wonder if perhaps that is what I
       | should do. There's not that much utility to the wide audience
       | anyway. Talking to people who understand you is much nicer
       | anyway.
        
         | mcdonje wrote:
         | >you get to use a slightly worse form of Twitter
         | 
         | The protocol can support all sorts of other social networks.
         | People are building things akin to instagram, tiktok, medium,
         | allrecipies, etc
        
           | maelito wrote:
           | I'm building a place review system.
        
         | culi wrote:
         | ATProto can be used be used for a lot more than just microblogs
         | 
         | https://tangled.org/
        
           | Croak wrote:
           | That is a really cool project, thanks for posting
        
       | dfajgljsldkjag wrote:
       | Complexity acts like a gate. When we make the code too hard to
       | understand, we are telling regular people that they are not
       | allowed to participate. True ownership of your data is only
       | possible if you can actually afford to host it yourself. We
       | should focus on making things simple enough for anyone to use.
        
       | arghandugh wrote:
       | The authors' difficulty is legitimate and real, but there are
       | less than 50 functioning did:web identities total on the planet.
       | 
       | Working outside of did:plc is a choice - this project is on the
       | very ragged, least baked edge of Atmosphere development.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | If Bluesky wants to be taken seriously they need to invest in
         | decentralization themselves and not leave it as an exercise for
         | the reader.
        
           | Kwpolska wrote:
           | How many users actually care about decentralization?
        
           | bramhaag wrote:
           | Unfortunately most people couldn't care less. Bluesky has
           | been lying about being decentralized since day 1, and yet
           | they have millions of users.
        
             | wolvoleo wrote:
             | I think a lot of those users do care but they don't know
             | they've been lying.
        
       | bnewbold wrote:
       | fair enough, the did:web flows are not documented even for
       | technical atproto developers, and there needs to be a self-serve
       | way to heal identity/account problems elsewhere in the network
       | (the "burn" problem).
       | 
       | I do think that did:plc provides more pragmatic freedom and
       | control than did:web for most folks, though the calculus might be
       | different for institutions or individuals with a long-term
       | commitment to running their own network services. But did:web
       | should be a functional alternative on principle.
       | 
       | I'm glad that the PDS was easy to get up and running, and that
       | the author was able to find a supportive community on discord.
        
       | wolvoleo wrote:
       | Key management shouldn't have to be difficult. Consider another
       | open microblogging protocol nostr. There a keypair is crucial to
       | the experience and every client automatically generates one if
       | you don't have one to import.
       | 
       | I think this part of the UX is just being neglected by bluesky.
        
       | ddtaylor wrote:
       | BlueSky has to be centralized right now because the quality of
       | the federated network is too poor right now.
        
       | Dwedit wrote:
       | "View -> Page Style -> Basic Page Style" is required to read any
       | of the text.
        
         | vog wrote:
         | Indeed, it's a pity that the author placed so much focus on a
         | cool looking font that they forgot to take basic properties
         | like "good readability" into account. Form should follow
         | function, not the other way around.
        
         | wolvoleo wrote:
         | I don't have any issues with it but I've been computing since
         | the 8 bit days which basically looked exactly like that :)
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-25 23:00 UTC)