One of the concessions the DOJ requested in the Google Search monopoly case was that Google share their search index with competitors, so that they may catch up to Google's product lead. Search queries are what make search good, and you can't get more queries if your search isn't already good. The same is true with social. A social network is worthless without people and content.

The AT Protocol enables competition from the start. Every app has access to all the content from every other app on the Atmosphere. Every account can log in to every app. If you start an atproto app today, you have 40 million accounts. Anyone can start a service and build success. And then anyone else can build a competing service on the same bed of content. Content is not a moat in the Atmosphere.

Content is not a moat in the Atmosphere.

This means that companies building on Atproto must compete on the merits of their product. They have to build superior experiences that offer real value to users. Switching costs are nonexistent. There is no such thing as platform lock-in here.

Read more about how ATproto standardization impacts innovators on the Graze Newsletter.