Bill Dybas

12 Aug

I'm organizing a recommender systems (RecSys) community for those in NYC who want to get together more often than the annual ACM conference. Sign up for information on meetups, events, reading groups, and more. recsys.nyc

suurf.tv"Very excited for this" — Bill Dybas (@bill)Watch "Introducing Best of Luck with Kyla Scanlon" on suurf

so hard to choose just nine

24 Aug

I should be able to create a PDS with an API call.

24 Aug

Much like email has a few large hosting providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.), we need more large scale PDS hosting providers. Not many people (including developers!) operate their own email server, and not many people will operate their own PDS.

24 Aug

same: we're still just building software albeit a bit more quickly than before

dame@dame.is

side-note: i don’t really use the term “vibecode” much anymore because it’s become too diluted and meaningless i just talk about “prototyping”, “experimenting”, and “play” these are all incredibly important things to be doing and don’t need to be pitted against more rigorous development

Passing on PDS hosting costs to your users seems like an aligned business model for Atmosphere apps.

You could even make it part of a subscription plan for your product. iCloud or Google Drive plans could be inspiration here.

If you’re a cloud provider, you already have these capabilities for your CDN. You’d now need to integrate the AT Proto specific bits.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

With a PDS host you’d want - High availability/reliability - Blob storage for associated media files - Moderation and reporting around your users uploading illegal content - A way to track storage usage and bill your users based on their volume - Economies of scale around reading the network

It does seem like there’s need for an infrastructure provider for PDS hosting so application developers can get started quickly. Are any cloud providers like Cloudflare thinking about offering this service?

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

Seems like a lot of folks at @atproto.nyc Community Day wanted to sign up their users with a custom PDS but were hesitant to take on the infra & moderation responsibilities here.

Seems like a lot of folks at @atproto.nyc Community Day wanted to sign up their users with a custom PDS but were hesitant to take on the infra & moderation responsibilities here.

For a good UX for people new to the Atmosphere, you’d like them to be able to sign up directly on your app instead of having to make a Bluesky account first.

But if you start hosting someone’s PDS for your app and then they use it elsewhere on the Atmosphere, you’re on the hook if they start uploading large image files or questionable content.

I wonder if we solve onboarding to the Atmosphere by having one PDS-per app and worry about merging all the data later.

- Make an awesome app - Sell people on your app (don’t mention AT Proto) - Grow the overall Atmosphere

22 Aug

Hello from @atproto.nyc Community Day 2026

14 Aug

Will Bluesky Protocol Services offer PDS hosting as a service? For example, so a new application could offer app-specific handles & provision new accounts for people who aren't (yet) on Bluesky?

How does "Sign in with Bluesky" work if your PDS is not hosted there? Will consumers know what "Atmosphere" is if you say "Sign in with Atmosphere"?

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

How can we make "Sign in with Bluesky" as easy to add to your app as "Sign in with Apple" or "Sign in with Google"?

What is the first-time sign up experience like? Can you provision a PDS for someone on-demand if they don't already have a Bluesky account?

How can we make "Sign in with Bluesky" as easy to add to your app as "Sign in with Apple" or "Sign in with Google"?

Auth0: community.auth0.com/t/bluesky-as... Clerk: feedback.clerk.com/request?id=3...

Solving this question is what will determine if the Atmosphere is going to flourish. IMO we're still a long way away from having the turnkey experience that makes a developer want to start their project on AT Proto. Still too much friction today.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

If you're a software developer today who wants to build new social software, why would you choose AT Proto for your project rather than keeping everything on your own backend?

If you're a software developer today who wants to build new social software, why would you choose AT Proto for your project rather than keeping everything on your own backend?

AT Proto: - Is more challenging than designing some SQL tables - Has a new learning curve around PDS's, Lexicons, AppViews, Relays, and more - Globally broadcasts your app's data publicly - Requires custom infra if not building on Bluesky's For the benefit of reading another app's social graph?

Places people congregate online: - Bluesky - X - Threads - Substack - Discord - Slack - Reddit - YouTube - TikTok - WhatsApp - iMessage - Telegram - Signal - Snapchat - Facebook - LinkedIn - Letterboxd - Twitch - Tumblr

atproto.comIntroducing Bluesky Protocol ServicesA new home for the infrastructure Bluesky runs on the open network — including Jetstream v2 with network replay, a new Jetstream SDK, and a lex-based TypeScript SDK

Very excited about this

AT Protocol Developers@atproto.com

Today we’re launching Bluesky Protocol Services, a new brand and website for the infrastructure Bluesky operates. And Jetstream v2, the best way for developers to use atproto at scale, now with network replay. atproto.com/blog/introdu...

Maybe the elephant in the room, but who is currently seriously investing in projects/companies building on AT Proto?

Consumer social is already a really tricky space to start a company in – who has the risk appetite to back companies here pre-PMF?

If you want to chat AT Proto business models, consumer social, or ways to grow the Atmosphere, I’ll be at @atproto.nyc Community Day. Let’s chat!

As a platform, how do you afford all this infrastructure and moderation at scale with a business model that aligns with your platform's values?

As a platform, how do you create the conditions where people are incentivized to contribute and not just consume? How do you foster psychological safety here?

As a platform, how do you enable people to reach a broad enough audience to meet people with similar interests but no so large where unhealthy parasocial relationships kick in?

If you take a reductionist view of social media, they are: 1. A group of people 2. Content of some form 3. A recommender system that helps match people to content

The trap with an advertising business model is that it incentivizes capturing attention for as long as possible to show more advertising. If you are unable to onboard more people (like we're starting to see with Meta), you start showing more ads to the people already there.

This becomes antithetical with building healthy relationships because you want to spend more time with people offline, not online. If you spend your time developing a dozen parasocial relationships with creators online, you're not developing a dozen real relationships with people in your life.

If you take a reductionist view of social media, they are: 1. A group of people 2. Content of some form 3. A recommender system that helps match people to content

It's no surprise that advertising has become the dominant business model for social media because you're applying the same techniques you would to match content to people to match advertising (it's a form of content!).

What interest do you have or part of your life where you don't already feel nourished IRL or online? Where you wish you knew more of those type of people. That's where to start pulling the thread.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

The way to succeed in social today is to create spaces that bring together people who otherwise weren't networked online who would be interested in meeting each other (and ideally hang out IRL).

Though if you do reciprocate, when meeting people in person for the first time you've only known online, it's like picking up deep conversation with an old friend. You've already seen into each others' minds.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

Social media provides the frequency and familiarity you need to build up trust with someone, but it's a one-sided trust unless you reciprocate.

journals.sagepub.comSage Journals: Discover world-class researchSubscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

As @zephoria.bsky.social notes, "Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media". journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

As we seek out people with similar interests, the platform affordances get in the way of developing healthy relationships. If you're watching someone's stories every day but never have an actual conversation with them, it's no different to developing an obsession with a pop star.

Social media provides the frequency and familiarity you need to build up trust with someone, but it's a one-sided trust unless you reciprocate.

theatlantic.comThe End of Reading Is HereOptimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.

If literacy is declining, it's no surprise that text-based social media will continue to struggle to grow. X, Bluesky, Threads, Substack will all face headwinds here. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

This is why school is such a formative time for many friendships – you meet a lot of new people by proximity and spend a lot of time with them.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com

As you age, your social graph starts to ossify. Unless you take deliberate effort to put yourself in generative spaces where you meet a lot of new people, you'll tend to want to spend time with the people you already know.

As teens and young adults start to figure out their identity and interests, they seek out other people with those shared interests. The place today to reliably find people with your niche interests (if you don't live in a major metro area) is social media.

Bill Dybas@billdybas.com