Building on ATProto

The author wants to build a suite of decentralized review applications (replacing Yelp, GoodReads, etc.) on Bluesky’s ATProto to avoid corporate data ownership. After attending the Local First Conference and speaking with developers, they find ATProto’s development direction surprising and disappointing. While they believe the protocol could enable interoperable, community-driven standards, they conclude it is not currently on track to fulfill that promise.