Time for Another Bluesky Vibe Check (and Happy 10th Birthday, Mastodon!)

ATmospheric Conditions Still Unfavorable for May 10, 2026 A year ago, I wrote Where Does Bluesky Go from Here? What is the Bluesky of 2036? about Mastodon turning 10 in 2026 (we passed its official 10th birthday back in February!), ATProto turning 4, and the wide gap in overall vibes between the Mastodon-dominated Fediverse and the Bluesky-dominated ATmosphere. Bluesky as a service is now 3 years old, though public registration have only been enabled for 2 years. Writing in last year’s post: It’s fair to say that, for all intents and purposes, ATProto = Bluesky and Bluesky = ATProto. Unlike ActivityPub which powers a wide range of software and services beyond Mastodon-based instances, Bluesky is without dispute the only major service using ATProto thus far. And I regret to inform you very little has changed since. While there are a handful of promising attempts at true decentralization, the most visible of which is Blacksky now mostly (though not completely) running its own…