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

Building @skysquare.app, I’ve thought a lot about what the future of the @atproto.com ecosystem might look like, and I’m increasingly excited by the possibilities. Skysquare is a useful demonstration of something that feels much bigger than the application itself—the portability of the ATProto post.

Hot take but I think it’s problematic for atproto that lots of developers i see talking about making stuff focus mostly on things absolutely no end user gives a shit about to fuel their protocols and architecture fetish, and it’s a failure there isn’t another app with like 100k+ users active even.

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

also, I kinda feel like calling the things that consume atproto data "apps" does a disservice to understanding what they are / how they work / what their potential is. But that is a partially-formed hot take I can't fully defend yet.

An atproto browser makes this easier to pitch and explain in my experience. things like webtil.es could make atproto more legible to folks and provide a clear value difference. "Join a community -> stream/go live, etc" in 1 app @stream.place in Blacksky demo as an example

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

adding social features to our websites will accelerate atproto adoption faster than building pure atproto apps

This is partly why I think atproto needs a more convincing vision about being a post-app protocol. A future where atproto is a bunch of apps and each app governs their own lexicon diminishes a lot of its potential in the long-term.

The future of atproto lies in bespoke AppViews: highly tailored features that seamlessly integrate with and elevate existing network-wide behaviors. Due to that, I am incredibly energized by the strategic innovations emerging from SkyBeMoreBlue and BlueSky Radio.

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

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