difficult to imagine atproto apps building to significant revenue in a world where you can just clone any given app in an afternoon & still access the backing data

difficult to imagine atproto apps building to significant revenue in a world where you can just clone any given app in an afternoon & still access the backing data

one thing I really like about atproto is that it provides the infrastructure needed to make open source user apps that actually fucking sync data across devices sorry but the average random hobbyist is absolutely not going to run a user account server for their homebrew todo list app

what is our “moat” on atproto even? what keeps people using a specific atproto app vs a fully compatible other app?

some thoughts on atproto as a post-app paradigm

🧵 I've been wracking my brain around ATProto onboarding. Why do all ATProto apps make you create a new account before you can do anything interesting? Why don't we let people start with an email address or phone #? Then claim your identity if/when the need actually arises.

🧵 I've been wracking my brain around ATProto onboarding. Why do all ATProto apps make you create a new account before you can do anything interesting? Why don't we let people start with an email address or phone #? Then claim your identity if/when the need actually arises.

Every lexicon, every "app" on ATProto is a "yes and" waiting for your contribution to the vision. We're all first party developers.

i would like to see more atproto apps that aren’t just “already popular app, but on atproto”

the point of atproto is to make locked-open apps. apps which are constrained such that they cannot be e.g. bought by billionaires and ruined. yes, doing non-atproto things "enables app developers to do more". yes, non-atproto is "more intuitive" and "it sucks" when you hit atproto's limits.

the open ecosystem for atproto makes it super easy for one developer to build a compelling and feature rich application in their free time that cannot possibly be maintained by one developer in their free time

I'm thinking about how non-developers will feel about atproto. For example, will it take people by surprise that data entered into one app can show up somewhere else? More thoughts in this post.

There are two theories-of-change emerging: displace vs. integrate They are by no means mutually exclusive, but much more effort has gone into spinning up brand new atproto apps with the goal to displace existing apps than has gone into embedding the protocol into every nook and cranny of the web.

The ATProto ecosystem has been arguing about what to call itself. The question sounds trivial — it isn't. What you put on the login button determines whether a new user understands they're joining one app or an open network.