@blacklight Whether or not this could have been an extension of #ActivityPub, I have no idea. But I think #ATProto goes well beyond.

It's still yet to see if it's an impossible to implement, overcomplicated mess, or an actual good idea. But dismissing it because it's not an extension of #ActivityPub is short-sighted in my opinion. New ideas also need room for experimentation, and backward compatibility concerns are a drag.