There are no instances in ATProto

#1

Post by danabramov » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

There are no instances in ATProto
overreacted.io

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#2

Post by bjkeefe2 » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

If you're curious about atproto and feel like a n00b about it, this is a great place to start.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#3

Post by Raed667 » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

Semi related post on why the moderation of federated Mastodon instances is a problem: https://blog.raed.dev/posts/mastodon_moderation

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#4

Post by AKSF_Ackermann » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#5

Post by uberex » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

Thanks! Your name makes me think of a funner pre-LLM time when Elm and Redux was new and cool. Great explainer!

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#6

Post by HashThis » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#7

Post by uberex » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #4

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

I just searched up Relay and I guess Relay is like Feeder in the analogy? I don't need it? And if I want it I choose one (many?) or run my own.

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#8

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #4

I wonder why were relays mentioned only mentioned in passing and there was no elaboration on how they interact with the rest of the network. Maybe because doing that would show that there are in fact "instances" in atproto, but who knows?

[deleted]

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#9

Post by axus » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

So all the censor needs to do is cut off one host? And then you upload everything to different host and connect that?

Re: There are no instances in ATProto

#10

Post by toomim » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

AT does have instances. They are just grouped differently.

In BlueSky, there is only one single "AppView" instance in the entire network. There is one instantiated "Firehose". Each user can instance his own "PDS".

In ActivityPub/Mastadon, the instances are "sender's server" vs "receiver's server."

The difference isn't that there aren't "instances" in AT proto. It's just that the instances are segmented differently.