Dan Abramov: there are no instances in ATProto

Category: Engineering post
Status: discussion
Sources: overreacted.io, discussion
Summary: In a post dated 2026-06-19, Dan Abramov argues the AT Protocol separates hosting from app aggregation, more like RSS and feed readers than Mastodon-style federated instances. Users can swap hosting providers independently while multiple apps project over shared data, so decentralization does not require many copies of one app and avoids instance-level network-effect lock-in.
Why it matters: The framing clarifies a recurring architecture question for developers evaluating decentralized social protocols and where account portability actually lives.