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Richard Reisman

@rreisman.bsky.social

1.1K followers 540 following 410 posts

Sociotechnical network/systems thinker, visionary, inventor, pioneer | Author: @TechPolicyPress, FairPay | Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foundation for American Innovation

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Oct 24

Reframing the issues of governing social media.
Human discourse is a social process that depends on three pillars: agency, mediation, & reputation. Without these three strong pillars, + middleware enabling open innovation and interoperation, social media will struggle to balance chaos and control.

Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · Oct 24

Human discourse is a social process, writes @rreisman.bsky.social , that depends on three pillars: agency, mediation, and reputation. But without strong pillars and middleware enabling open innovation and interoperation, social media will likely struggle to balance chaos and control.

Three Pillars of Human Discourse (and How Social Media Middleware Can Support All Three) | TechPolicy.Press

Human discourse is a social process, writes Richard Reisman, that depends on three pillars: agency, mediation, and reputation.

www.techpolicy.press

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 6d

Maybe an ecosystem that supports a handful of well-resourced shared services is the solution that satisfices?

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 8d

What most people think of as @bsky.app is just the tip of the @atprotocol.dev iceberg -- and this iceberg is growing -- from the top and bottom!

dan @danabra.mov · 12d

i wrote about atproto and why it matters

Open Social — overreacted

The protocol is the API.

overreacted.io

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 8d

Very nice explanation of why @bsky.app and @atprotocol.dev really matter, by @danabra.mov.

Jake Gold @jacob.gold · 10d

Wow. Great work @danabra.mov!

Recruiting devs to the atproto ecosystem is a massive part of how atproto/Bluesky will win.

Great educational posts like this one doing well on HN is the most effective tactic available.

Many more devs still need to learn how much the atproto network has to offer.

dan @danabra.mov · 12d

i wrote about atproto and why it matters

Reposted by Richard Reisman

Graze Social @graze.social · 9d

We're excited to share the new Graze! Completely redesigned look, same powerful tooling. Check it out at graze.social ✨

Bluesky Custom Feeds - Built By You

Design, deploy, and grow custom feeds of any complexity on Bluesky with Graze.social.

graze.social

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 9d

Some initial thoughts going in, for a piece I plan to write soon after: ucm.teleshuttle.com/2025/09/thou...

Thoughts for the Global Free Speech Summit (10/3-4/25)

I look forward to attending the Global Free Speech Summit on October 3-4 in Nashville, with an impressive slate of speakers. These are tr...

ucm.teleshuttle.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 9d

Looking forward to the Global Free Speech Summit on October 3-4 in Nashville, with an impressive slate of speakers. Here are some thoughts going in, as I hope for added insights at the Summit. Thanks to @futurefreespeech.org and @mchangama.bsky.social. #FreeSpeechSummit2025

The Future of Free Speech @futurefreespeech.org · Sep 8

In 25 days, we’ll come together in Nashville to discuss resilient solutions to today’s most pressing free speech challenges, both online and offline.

🔗 Apply to the #FreeSpeechSummit2025, hosted with @vanderbilt.edu: https://globalfreespeechsummit.com/

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

Happy to see renewed attention to the innovative ideas of #FairPay revenue strategies in this thread by @kissane.bsky.social & @bmann.ca (with some comments added by me).

Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 25d

“But why can’t I pay per article??”

Because you won’t. You think you will and that other people will too but you won’t and they won’t. People hate them.

rreisman.medium.com/the-case-aga...

“The Case Against Micropayments” — From Fear and Surprise to The Comfy Chair

Micropayment hope springs eternal. Clay Shirky and Andrew Odlyzko drove a stake in its heart way back in the dot-com era, but here it is…

rreisman.medium.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

And FairPay encompasses value exchange of all kinds, in both directions—so can include non-monetary forms of value, such as “like & subscribe,” into its highly customizable “reverse metering.”

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

Yes, I often use the term “patron” as more appropriate than customer or consumer. It signifies potentially ongoing relationship, the key to #FairPay.

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

…and this older one explains why the fixed, pre-set pricing we take as a given is actually unnatural and an artifact of mass retail. www.fairpayzone.com/2014/12/so-l...

So Last Century! - It's Time to End the Tyranny of Set Prices

FairPay: Adaptively Seeking Win-Win - Customer Dialogs about Value, Personalized Pricing -- a win-win way to resolve the revenue crisis for digital

www.fairpayzone.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

My latest post on FairPay notes that the expected rise of Personal AI agents (PAIs) promises to make FairPay far easier and intuitive to apply.
www.fairpayzone.com

The FairPay Zone

FairPay: Adaptively Seeking Win-Win - Customer Dialogs about Value, Personalized Pricing -- a win-win way to resolve the revenue crisis for digital

www.fairpayzone.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · 25d

Thanks @kissane.bsky.social for citing my post, & @bmann.ca for tagging me & the excellent #ProtocolsforPublishers.

My work explains why it is not subs or micropayments, but fixed prices that cannot be value based—and that digital enables a process for value-based relationship pricing.

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Reposted by Richard Reisman

Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · Sep 7

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...

Opinion | Stop Acting Like This Is Normal

www.nytimes.com

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 6

Early days. A high level “feed mixer” and an ecosystem of “branded” curation services could make customizing feeds as simple and intuitive as a newsstand (as I describe in the linked blog post).

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 6

…and all 4 installments in the Delegation Series with @mchrisriley.com explore this nuance, reflexivity, and sociotechnical dynamics.
techpolicy.press/delegation-o...

Delegation, Or, The Twenty Nine Words That The Internet Forgot | TechPolicy.Press

Section 230 language regarding user control over what information is received is crucial, write Richard Reisman & Chris Riley.

techpolicy.press

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 6

That is temporary and being addressed by Free Our Feeds and related efforts to open and catalyze the ATmosphere to create filters and friction to limit such problems.

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 5

More at ucm.teleshuttle.com/2025/08/beyo.... And an early example is Blacksky: blog.rudyfraser.com/an-internet-...

Beyond the State of the Art in Social Media (and AI) -- Cruising Your "Vibes" with a Feed Mixer -- on "Bicycles for Our Minds"

Context : I have been thinking and writing about this future of "bicycles for our minds" for decades in ways that look well beyond the gener...

ucm.teleshuttle.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 5

We should be less doomerist (or defensive) on skew in initial Bsky communities, & use Bsky as leverage to build an open pluriverse that can offer whatever vibe you want. We have only short window to build that before openness to diverse communities of interest/values may become impossible.

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 5

As open ATproto ecosystem grows & better feed mixer services emerge, you will be able to compose feeds for whatever vibe you want any given time. This composable ecosystem will grow to be a “shmoo” (a cartoon creature that wants to be eaten & tastes like whatever you want it to).

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Sep 5

Blueskyism: Nate Silver's argument (pro AND con) about the “vibe” of Bluesky as a "wokeist" “lib Twitter” misses the really important potential of Bluesky/ATproto's intrinsic ability to “Free Our Feeds” to let every user to filter for their own vibe - now in just early stages of emergence.🧵

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Reposted by Richard Reisman

Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · Sep 1

Bluesky has been critical to Democracy Docket's growth and reach. Nate Silver is an idiot.

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · Sep 1

"Blueskyism" helped make The Onion one of the largest newspapers in the world in less than a year. If we had spent all of our time on Twitter, we'd be poorer, dumber and terminally ill with internet poisoning. He's just angry he's wasting away over there in a nazi agnostic lane that doesn't exist.

egg price watcher @bluser12.bsky.social · Sep 1

“Blueskyism”

Rent free lmao

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Reposted by Richard Reisman

Bluesky @bsky.app · Aug 22

Unfortunately, Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi right now, due to a new state law that requires age verification for all users.

While intended for child safety, we think this law poses broader challenges & creates significant barriers that limit free speech & harm smaller platforms like ours.

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Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Aug 21

Right! ...a start in that direction from 2012, now being picked up as "bridging systems."
ucm.teleshuttle.com/2012/10/filt...

Filtering for Serendipity -- Extremism, "Filter Bubbles" and "Surprising Validators"

[ The Augmented Wisdom of Crowds: Rate the Raters and Weight the Ratings , (2018) puts this in a much broader framework and outlines an a...

ucm.teleshuttle.com

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Aug 21

Looking forward to an interesting day of discussion and new ideas/perspectives with a great group - and follow-up after. cc: @chadkoh.com @bmann.ca @ivansigal.bsky.social @devingaffney.com @werd.io @bnewbold.net

Richard Reisman @rreisman.bsky.social · Aug 21

...and biz models for AI info agent services:
www.fairpayzone.com/2024/11/fair...

FairPay: an Innovative, Win-Win Customer-First Revenue Model Framework for Social Media, AI, and Other Digital Services

FairPay: Adaptively Seeking Win-Win - Customer Dialogs about Value, Personalized Pricing -- a win-win way to resolve the revenue crisis for digital