Bluesky absolutely got it right with ATproto: you can make any kind of client, not just microblogging, and it will seamlessly work with your Bluesky identity. Everything you post goes into your personal storage, and the clients that know how to interpret special data types are able to reach into your PDS and the timelines you’re following to present that stuff.
ActivityPub API needs to follow a similar story.
Why do I care so much about this? A few reasons.
One, I don’t want to have a dozen different accounts across separate types of applications on the same network. I really hate that, it’s messy and does nothing to unify my identity across all the spaces I’m active on.
Two, a seamless login across the entire network could be very powerful for discovery. Instead of having to find people to follow on Pixelfed and PeerTube, the folks I’m already connected to would already be there, right when I sign in.
Three, we could develop a new generation of rich clients that all do really different things, but all tie back to a singular identity. “Sign In With ActivityPub” could work for the entire network, and it wouldn’t have to be a hack using Mastodon’s API.
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://social.wedistribute.org/objects/a233f4a9-c5da-4565-80ba-8667e3a522e5 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)
