Avoid referring to it as a Bluesky conference.

Recently, the inaugural in-person gathering dedicated to developers working with the AT Protocol, also known as atproto – the technology driving Bluesky’s growing social network of over 33 million users – took place in Seattle. The event drew attendees including developers, engineers, founders, and members of the Bluesky team, such as CEO Jay Graber. Many community members met in person for the first time, having previously only interacted online.

Although Bluesky is currently the largest app built on atproto, the social network itself was not the primary focus of the ATmosphere Conference. Instead, Bluesky was viewed as just another developer, albeit a prominent one, given its role in stewarding atproto – a social networking protocol that provides a framework for building decentralized social networks.

The conference focused on the atproto protocol itself, exploring its possibilities, including the development of various social apps, communities, and providing users with a means to sign in across apps and web services using an open social identity via the authentication standard OAuth.

The primary objective of the conference was to empower users by giving them control over their data, algorithms, and overall online experience.

In essence, the 150+ attendees, along with virtual participants, aimed to rebuild the web by transferring power from billionaire tech oligarchs to the people who actually use the web.

This shift in power is not surprising, given the presence of self-described anarchists, mutual aid devotees, and open-source advocates among the conference attendees.

However, for some attendees, years of idealism have been tempered by the reality of past failures, including public products like Twitter and earlier attempts at decentralized apps.

This time, they aim to learn from their mistakes and build something new.

The event began with Blaine Cook, co-author of the OAuth standard and former lead developer at Twitter, sharing his experiences at the social network now known as X. He reflected on how Twitter became “corrupted by capital and a lack of imagination” despite being the “most visceral representation of public human communication and ideas” he had ever seen.

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