mike masnick:

But, as Godier’s piece notes, protocols are… boring. They change slowly (for a good reason, because you need stability to build on). They tend to change by consensus, which is messy. And rather than having billion dollar companies throwing a whole massive en­gi­nee­ring team at making ever­y­thing work, in the protocol world, we rely on constant ex­pe­ri­men­ta­ti­on by anyone who wants to ex­pe­ri­ment.

tim trautmann:

The open web of the nineties didn’t win because the tools were better. It won because a critical mass of people decided that the al­ter­na­ti­ve, a handful of AOL-style walled gardens choosing what everyone saw, was not the future they wanted. Then they built their way out of it. Slowly, un­g­lamo­rous­ly, in rooms that looked a lot like this one.

Whether atproto ends up being the thing, or a stepping stone to the thing, I don’t know. Nobody in the room claimed to know. But the work is real, the apps are shipping, and the people building them are taking it seriously without taking them­sel­ves seriously. That com­bi­na­ti­on is rare, and his­to­ri­cal­ly, it’s the one that wins.