Apps would need to run a PDS, but this has gotten astronomically easier compared to a year ago.
Maybe a small npm package with:
• server-side account provisioning
• custodial credential storage
• the "claim your identity" email flow
• upgrade path to bring-your-own-PDS
Would you use this?
🧵 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.
How's this flow?
1. User enters email
2. Server silently calls createAccount on your PDS
3. DID provisioned, session token issued (all server-side)
4. User lands in the app and can write immediately
5. Send email: "you're signed in as @handle — tap to claim or edit your identity"
Similar quiet at cyclocross worlds in the Netherlands in Feb this year (40,000 spectators). The taxi dropoff (left photo) was so quiet my Uber driver asked "Are you sure? The world championship?"
Bus tickets bundled into online ticket sales, thousands of bikes, parking only with VIP tickets (€125).
Magic aka transit!
Same with atmo.rsvp too. It's so clean and nice, but "Login to RSVP" is a nonstarter.
As with most frontier technologies, we're better off regulating via normal ethical & legal frameworks than throwing our hands up at the altar of innovation.
Don't ban AI entirely, but hold companies and people responsible for harms created by irresponsible AI use.
Alternatively, if major PDSs (ahem @eurosky.social @blackskyweb.xyz @transrights.northsky.social) are willing to accept ID-creation calls from a vetted list of other apps, your app wouldn't have to run/maintain a PDS at all.
To bring this back to reality, I want to use userinput.app for a few in-person communities (from a dozen to a few thousand), but very very worried about dropoff at account creation time. (Which sounds like exactly why Roundabout accounts work as they do.)
Sportsball is nice and all, but did you see what Wout did today at the Dauphiné?!