The crypto bros defined Web 3.0, or "Web3", as the decentralized web, and, in many ways, they were correct. Just not in the way they anticipated. Obviously, they were referring to blockchain, but they got a little more than they bargained for when the initial wave of Twitter users flocked to Mastodon following Elon's hostile takeover. Meanwhile, Bluesky was brewing on the side as Dorsey's pet project until the moderation features grew so strict that he moved to Nostr.
While ActivityPub and ATProto are two sides of the same coin, each with their respective flagship clients, Mastodon (loosley speaking) and Bluesky, they differ in their methods and implementation. ActivityPub is "full stack," while ATProto is modular, and that makes all the difference in the world.
What makes ATProto so interesting is the PDS (Personal Data Server) system. This is a basically a more polished version of OpenID, a decentralized authentication protocol, but PDS additionally doubles as a public cloud storage provider. I say this because, well, here I am on WhiteWind using an account I created on Bluesky. That must stand for something. xD
If you could make a blog with this, then you could potentially make a BBS with it, too, well...
Both Bluesky and WhiteWind are just clients that get data from the PDS that is passed through a Relay. Nothing is stopping anyone from making a BBS with it. Which would be a dream come true, personally. I miss those days. Hell, I could make a classic Web 1.0 site and just use ATProto to build a guest book, and it'd still be valid.
While the crypto bros were right to recognize that decentralized authentication was the future, it was never going to come from the blockchain. ActivityPub and ATProto are Web 3.0, in my opinion.
