When Elon Musk transformed Twitter into X, triggering a user exodus, many migrated to Bluesky—a platform built on the AT Protocol (ATProto). Unlike centralized platforms, ATProto enables a federated social network where users retain ownership of their social graph and content, allowing migration between compatible services. As Bluesky CEO Jay Graber stated:

"If a billionaire came in and bought Bluesky... users could fork off and go on to other applications.

This portability theoretically forces platforms to prioritize user needs. Yet, as adoption grows (Bluesky now boasts 37M users), critical questions emerge about ATProto's long-term impact on information ecosystems.

The Federation Experiment

Bluesky’s architecture distributes hosting across independent servers ("PDS" nodes). Users interact through applications that aggregate content from these federated sources. Crucially, identities and social graphs are portable: 

// Simplified ATProto identity structure
interface UserAccount {
  did: string; // Decentralized Identifier
  handle: string;
  pdsUrl: string; // Home server
  follows: did[];
  blocks: did[];
}
Article illustration 3

Simplified federation model (Servers A, B, C)

This design counters platform lock-in but creates new incentive structures. History offers warnings:

Lessons from the Hyperlink Era

Early web analysis revealed how link structures fostered ideological silos. Lada Adamic's research visualized this in political blogs:

Article illustration 2

Conservative (red) and liberal (blue) blog clusters (Lada Adamic, 2005)

Web 2.0 amplified this with algorithmic curation optimized for engagement. Platforms became "attention sinkholes"—prioritizing glitzy, emotionally charged content that exploits cognitive biases.

The Moloch of Portability

ATProto’s frictionless migration risks accelerating this trend. Consider this scenario:

  1. Servers A and B enforce strict moderation.
  2. Server C adopts lax policies, attracting extremist content and users seeking fewer restrictions.
  3. A and B defederate from C to protect their communities.
Article illustration 4

Defederation: A/B isolate from C

C, competing for growth, further relaxes moderation. New server D federates with C, implementing even more aggressive engagement tactics (e.g., AI-generated outrage). A/B become high-quality but niche; C/D dominate through scale and addictive content.

Article illustration 5

C grows through extreme content

The Core Tension

Bluesky’s portability empowers users but also enables negative competition:
- Platforms vie for users by lowering moderation barriers
- High-quality content is expensive; low-quality "slob" floods networks
- Algorithmic curation favors dopamine triggers over nuance

As AI-generated content proliferates, this dynamic intensifies. Decentralization alone doesn’t solve the fundamental incentive misalignment: Human brains prefer fast glitz over slow truth, and platforms profit by catering to this.

Beyond Binary Choices

The challenge isn't centralization vs. decentralization—it's designing systems that incentivize healthy discourse. ATProto’s flexibility allows novel approaches:
- Reputation-weighted moderation
- Client-side filtering controls
- Micropayments for quality content

Bluesky's vibrant ecosystem (evidenced by rapid sell-out of Graber's "Mundus sine Caesaribus" shirt


alt="Article illustration 1"
loading="lazy">

) shows promise. But without deliberate guardrails, the protocol’s frictionless portability could splinter the social fabric it aims to repair. The solution lies not in rejecting decentralization, but in engineering its incentives to value depth over speed.