alt Hacker NewsReading articles like this one, I do think people are trying to put a square peg (their applications) through a round hole (ATProto). The ATProto was designed around all data being public. You write public data to a user's PDS and then any application can read that public data and do something with it. If all data was private (encrypted?) by default then that would defeat half of all of ATProto's goals.
Imagine someone starts startup A on-top of the ATProto. They raise some money, get some users, some people love it, but ultimately they die. If the data was private to that service, that data dies with the startup. But if the data is all public future startup B can read that old data and do something with it. As a user that's brings me a ton of utility and comfort trying out new services.
If you're trying to built a local-first, mostly private service I just don't think the ATProto is the right tool for the job.
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atproto permissioned data [1] will solve the dilemma you're describing. Ultimately all the data is in the same place (your PDS) and you can always read and write any data there. If startup A goes away, startup B can read that old data and do something useful with it.
[1] https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/blob/main/0016-p...
> If all data was private (encrypted?) by default then that would defeat half of all of ATProto's goals.
Yeah, this is the reason why I don't understand why they succumbed to the idea ATProto must handle private and has started on work trying to figure it out (https://atproto.wiki/en/working-groups/private-data). Instead, focus on just really great public data archiving and displaying, at scale.
If the primary user concern is "all data is public", then the utility of ATProto is extremely narrow and will likely lose to something with a different philosophy.
> The ATProto was designed around all data being public.
I might turn this around to say that ATProto was the square peg trying to fit into the round hole (the vast majority of people want privacy)
> If you're trying to built a local-first, mostly private service I just don't think the ATProto is the right tool for the job.
I agree! I think the "permissioned data" working group is aiming to solve the middle ground – where you want to broadcast something "publicly" but to a specific audience instead of the whole world (e.g. invite-only event, membership club). It's "private" in the sense it's not open to all but not in the sense that only you can see the data.
Nick Gerakines has been sharing some good examples of what you could build using permissioned data:
- Private Events: https://ngerakines.leaflet.pub/3mqxalpvn4k2e
- Bookmarks: https://ngerakines.leaflet.pub/3mqu653us3k2p
- Community content: https://ngerakines.leaflet.pub/3mqzsstcsok25
- Forums: https://ngerakines.leaflet.pub/3mr3uqjjaxs2d
- Polls: https://ngerakines.leaflet.pub/3mr3waxevjc24