Surf is made possible by the ecosystem known as the open social web. 

Unlike traditional social media, where a single company controls everything, the open social web is made up of many decentralized services. These include platforms from the fediverse (using the ActivityPub protocol) like Mastodon, Flipboard and Threads, as well as services from the Atmosphere (using ATProtocol) such as Bluesky, Blacksky and Skylight. 

Surf brings all of these together plus RSS to create a unified social and content experience.

This openness gives you more choice and control over how your connect with your communities. Want to learn more? Here’s a great explainer by Ben Werdmuller.