Comments are the most interesting part of the internet.
We spend a lot of time analyzing the Creator Economy. We obsess over Content Creators. But we have neglected the people who actually make the internet feel alive.
As Blake Robbins noted, platforms like TikTok and Reddit thrive on a simple premise: "Come for the content, stay for the comments."
The content is the campfire. The comments are the people sitting around it. Without the comments, you’re just sitting alone in the dark staring at a fire.
Cal Newport sees this clearly. He argues for a return to niche communities, built entirely on the foundation of the comment section. He points to the Talk Nats baseball blog, where fans generated over 540 comments during a single game, not for an algorithm, but for each other. They discussed pitch counts and inside jokes in a space that was unalgorithmic, chronological, and joyful.
But today, that joy is being suffocated.
The Dead Internet
Visit a YouTube comment section or a default Reddit sub today, and you will feel the creep of the Dead Internet Theory. It is becoming a reality.
Between AI slop, engagement farming bots, and toxic drift, the signal-to-noise ratio is plummeting. If we do not find a solution fast, we are cooked. We risk losing the only part of the internet that actually connects us.
The AT Proto Fix
The solution isn't better AI moderators. The solution is architecture.
We need to treat comments not as database entries owned by a site, but as portable digital objects owned by the user. This is where the AT Protocol shifts the paradigm.
When you move comments to a protocol, you solve the structural problems of the web in one move:
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Identity is persistent. Comments aren't anonymous scribbles on a wall; they are tied to a portable profile.
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Moderation is inherited. If I mute you on the network, you are muted on my blog. The moderation scales without effort.
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No Silos. The conversation doesn't die on the blog post. It lives in the open social graph.
Making Comments Profitable
This architecture creates something new: a reputation economy for feedback.
The best commenters build communities. They add context, spark discussions, and turn passive readers into active participants. But right now, that work is invisible and unowned. Writing a thoughtful comment on a WordPress blog feels like shouting into a void.
If that comment lives on a protocol where it is attached to your identity, visible on your profile, and portable across applications, it gains value.
Not necessarily in cash (though that will come), but in social capital. When you reward the commenter with ownership of their words, you stop getting spam. You start getting communities like Talk Nats.
We reward creators. It's time we started rewarding the people who make their content worth the attention.