A while back, I published a post called “The joy of writing online”. In there, I talk about how great it is to be a part of the “blogging on your personal website” club.
Since then, I also got more and more into the ATproto community and I get very similar vibes from there.
I’ve been building things for the web for over 10 years now and the only other time where it felt like I was a part of a bigger community of builders was when I discovered the indie hacking scene in 2018.
ATproto feels similar, with one difference: It feels like there is this bigger and overarching goal of making the web more open and personal again. This sense of purpose makes me even more excited.
While the community is growing by the day, the connection paths within are relatively short. That’s really cool for getting in touch with the right people.
For example:
I’m building Morgenblau, an ATproto-based RSS reader. I first wrote about the concept a couple of weeks back, and back then, already multiple people expressed interest and some even reached out in private.
This week, Patrick somehow discovered the post again and shared it. This led to even more eyes on the post and ultimately ended in getting very valuable feedback and DMs from folks (thanks again!) and also in me discovering projects that are building in a similar area (most notably Octothorpes Protocol and Murmel).
It’s this serendipity of discovering cool things, getting to know great people and creating something new with others that makes building online such a joy!