How I describe the Atmosphere to non-technical friends

The Pitch

• Bluesky¹ is an app using a new kind of cloud called the Atmosphere.
• In the Atmosphere, you have 1 account for all your apps. No need to manage 20 login/passwords.
• Your account hold all the data you submitted into apps.
• In Bluesky, data is your posts, follows and likes. In a music app, data can be what you are listening to, your playlists or what you recommend.
• When you login, you authorise an app to see and add specific data to your account.
•²Different apps can use the same data (e.g your posts) so you can use the app you prefer. No need to import/export, just login and it's there.
• It is similar to choosing gmail or apple mail to list and send your emails. Same email, different apps.
• Since you have one account with all your data, the music app can access your Bluesky follows and display what they are listening to as well as what they recommend.

The Rationale

I've discovered ATProto 3 months ago. It's enough time to ignore it, get confused, understand, explore, get excited and build on it. I've also learned to value my own ignorance and the newcomer perspective so I want to take advantage of it.

Failed to fetch post

View on Bluesky

This used to be a post from a user trying to register on NorthSky and being prompted to use their Bluesky account. They went on describing how they created a new Northsky account in fear of having Northsky overwrite their Bluesky account only to realise they actually created a new bluesky account.

I believe the confusion and attempts at explaining made it worse and they removed their post.

This is concerning and it shows how much more work is required to onboard new atmosphere users. Still, there are some positives. If it wasn't confusing, it wouldn't be ground breaking. We need to improve how to describe it in simple terms.

I believe there are few rules to follow to do that:
• only introduce one name for this technology (I prefer Atmosphere)
• no technical term
• describe applications, differences and what it unlocks (what, not how)
• no need to explain public data. It doesn't help and will change
• no notion of personal data repo and the fact that we can move them or host them
• use analogies

The last one is important and I've seen mostly 2 so far. RSS and phone carrier. RSS is great when you understand it (which I'm not sure I do) but it is too technical.
Phone carrier is promising but it feels far away from the current applications and use cases thus failing to convey the benefits.
Here, I want to try using email and email clients instead because many people are familiar with at least 2 email clients (gmail and apple mail around me).

This is how I ended up with

• Bluesky is an app using a new kind of cloud called the Atmosphere.
• In the Atmosphere, you have 1 account for all your apps. No need to manage 20 login/passwords.
• Your account hold all the data you submitted into apps.
• In Bluesky, data is your posts, follows and likes. In a music app, data can be what you are listening to, your playlists or what you recommend.
• When you login, you authorise an app to see and add specific data to your account.
• Different apps can use the same data (e.g your posts) so you can use the app you prefer. No need to import/export, just login and it's there.
• It is similar to choosing gmail or apple mail to list and send your emails. Same email, different apps.
• Since you have one account with all your data, the music app can access your Bluesky follows and display what they are listening to as well as what they recommend.

That's it! I believe this is enough for an introduction. It's very tempting to start explaining what it means to own your data and that you can move it but it's not necessary. Most people won't care and it's preferable to focus on the immediate benefits: single login, choosing your preferred app. Even the music app and bluesky friends example, which shows the potential for joining multiple app data, is right on the fence of being too abstract. After all, as developers, we know how hard it can be but for non-technical people, they already experience those features so what's the fuss about? I kept it as an hint to drive further discussions.