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We’ve seen more people asking about this lately. Pinksky is just a photo visualizer. It doesn’t store data or create accounts. Anyone on Bluesky appears there automatically because the profiles are public. That's how it technically works and its the main difference from other social apps.

That said, we believe this should be clearer when creating a Bluesky/ATProto account. It’s already in the ToS, but many users join expecting a Twitter-like experience without realizing how different it really is. And maybe that’s the whole point of Bluesky’s purpose.

We considered creating an "opt-out" from Pinksky, but it would go against ATProto's core nature. Some people enjoy seeing photos, others videos or text. Fragmenting it would be like returning to the “silos” that traditional social media have built. It’s a very tough discussion.

atproto is about user choice (imo) and apps not giving opt-out will drive more people to put everything in private data so apps cannot do this "core nature" of atproto.com means different things to different people. "public-permissionless" is not it, with the inevitable private data that is coming

As mentioned, it’s a tough discussion. ATProto is actually about “opting in” to different app views, and Bluesky app view is public. Pinksky isn’t an app view, it’s just a client. Blocking it would be like preventing others from viewing your posts on @deck.blue, for example.

right, so we are building non-public capabilities because most people private-by-default regardless, a good denizen would offer opt-out people are confused by your marketing copy and relationship, it should be clear on landing instead of having to dig for it, like @deck.blue does

☝🏽 This. The data is in the account's repo which is publicly available. Anyone can create frontend/clients however they want and access publicly available data. You cannot "opt-out" from it. Well, unless @pinksky.app starts checking Bio hashtags like #NoPinksky. I'm doing that for all my feeds.

1. User Intents is a proposal that lets users express how they would like their data used or not 2. We're building private data so the relationship is flipped. Most people want to be the ones determining how their data is used. The public-permissionless setup holds back adoption

That's awesome! Hopefully it gets approved and implemented soon. But in the case of Pinksky, it's just a frontend client for the "microblogging" part of the ATmosphere network, not a different service like Frontend, Rocksky, Popfeed, PiPup, Monomarks.

people are confused by it regularly, as having to keep making posts to clarify indicates @deck.blue calls itself out as a client, @pinksky.app buries it away from landing and login

The popup describing it only appears on the first launch. Everywhere else (app store, bsky profile) it’s described as a "client". Still, "client" is a bit technical term, so we've been testing other ways to describe the app's purpose in a way that feels clearer to regular users. Example: