6 ms·

Akasha: A Social Media Network Powered by Ethereum and IPFS

120 points by alexandrerond 10y ago

satbyy 10y ago
A side note, but couldn't help notice ".world". Wonder why they didn't buy akasha.space which is more suitable because akasha means "space" or "sky" in Indian languages. (500 USD to buy the domain name though. May be affordable?)
vr3690 10y ago
Wasn't clear from the page. What can I use it for? Why does it exist?
- bydo 10y ago
  >What can I do with AKASHA? >You can publish, share and vote for entries, similar to Medium and other modern publishing platforms, with the difference that your content is actually published over a decentralized network rather than on our servers. Moreover, the votes are bundled with ETH micro transactions so if your content is good you’ll make ETH from it – in a way, mining with your mind.
  - askafriend 10y ago
    That sounds.....like fun....I'm serious. Very interesting.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    if your content is good you’ll make ETH from it Does it have to be my content? Is there anything to stop me writing a bot that looks for popular Medium/Reddit/HN/whatever articles and post them to AKASHA under my name to harvest ETH? That's exactly what people will do if they believe there's money to be made.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - Bombthecat 10y ago
      Nothing, I also guess it is a good chance to make money from cat pictures :)
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    Sounds good except for only using microtransactions for voting (it is also easy to inflate your own votes). I'd prefer to see something closer to a federated system for voting / popularity tracking (however unlikely it may be). To detect spam bots and similar manipulation methods you need trusted humans to filter out the bad votes by spotting the trends. And being able to see the differences in average votes between various voting clusters (different sets of users) would probably be an improvement (through seeing the varying rankings across servers with different userbases).
    - MihaiAlisie 10y ago
      We are using a quadratic voting system for the microtransaction side with weights between 1 to 10. Basically this enables people to easily support their authors/artists/cause via votes/likes with amounts from 1 cent to 1 dollar. Quadratic voting is also quite interesting as it allows people to express "how much they like/dislike" a particular thing - which is not possible with the traditional 1 like/vote per 1 person mechanisms. We are aware of the potential problems that might emerge from this model and this is why we are very interested in exploring various solutions such as Proof of Individuality and reputation systems that can bring both local and global rankings into the mix. These areas are still in the early days of pioneering but we are determined to experiment as much as possible in the search for the best solution. Anyone that is interested in this sort of things is more than welcome to join the discussions on our slack at http://akasha-slack.herokuapp.com/ http://akasha-slack.herokuapp.com/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wtbob 10y ago
All I can see is a blank white page — doesn't fill me with confidence.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  I would suggest not browsing the Internet with a broken browser, then. (Hint: NoScript.)
  - pstrateman 10y ago
    Websites that are javascript only are broken.
    - zaphar 10y ago
      That's odd. It's not broken for me. Are you sure it's not your browser? Maybe you have a broken javascript interpreter?
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  Hello, akasha.world is at the moment just a presentation website hosted via GitHub Pages. We needed javascript to make it pretty :) If you want to find out more about our project with javascript disabled, our blog should be readable http://blog.akasha.world/ http://blog.akasha.world/
  - wtbob 10y ago
    > We needed javascript to make it pretty You can make a page pretty just with CSS; and even if you add behaviour via JavaScript, you can still degrade gracefully. I see nothing but a blank page in both lynx and eww.
exolymph 10y ago
It mystifies me that people seem to think users will suddenly start caring about decentralization and privacy. If either of those things is your social network's USP, you're sunk.
- captainmuon 10y ago
  Decentralization is more powerful than you think. If I open a social network that is just like Facebook, it will go under. But if it is also properly decentralized (=federated), meaning you can have account at my site but interact with every Facebook user as if you had an account there, Facebook immediately looses it's network effect. And if I offer an additional silly feature, say let users customize the color of their home page, my decentralized net is at an advantage. Unfortunately, Facebook explicitly forbids that kind of interaction, of course. I see two options how decentralized nets could win: 1) Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate (makes sense if you argue that FB has become infrastructure) or without that: 2) Lots of people try to build federated sites, and fail... but one day, Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace, and one of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance.
  - amelius 10y ago
    > Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate This could happen faster than you might think. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ([1]) just needs some updating to current technological standards. Quoted: > Interconnectedness. Since communications services exhibit network effects and positive externalities, new entrants would face barriers to entry if they could not interconnect their networks with those of the incumbent carriers. Thus, another key provision of the 1996 Act sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks with one another, imposing additional requirements on the incumbents because they might desire to restrict competitive entry by denying such interconnection or by setting terms, conditions, and rates that could undermine the ability of the new entrants to compete. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
    - 10y ago
amelius 10y ago
I was hoping to read something about the protocols. For example, how do they handle access control (e.g. so that only friends can see my status, photos, or so that groups can be managed)? How are updates broadcasted (without polling)?
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  Hi there! In the first release/MVP stage AKASHA will resemble a lot to Twitter/Medium in this regard, in the sense that your published entries will be public and visible by everyone. That being said, access control is on our roadmap but it is not a priority at the moment. The updates are broadcasted via the Ethereum network through a smart contract that records and dispatches events associated with profiles such as new entries. This way, the people that follow you on AKASHA will receive in their stream a notification letting them know that a new entry has been published and can be accessed via IPFS at hash X.
  - omphalos 10y ago
    Can people join this network without downloading an application - will it be available in the browser? The reason I ask is most decentralized applications up to this point require a download to start your own node (zeronet for example). Availability from the browser I believe is important for decentralized applications because it lowers the barrier to entry for consumers. PS., not sure if you noticed, but some of your comments on this page are marked dead. I have no idea why this has been done to you.
    - MihaiAlisie 10y ago
      Hello, In the first phase an application is needed as interacting with the Ethereum/IPFS network currently requires a local Ethereum/IPFS node. IPFS for example is currently working on a javascript implementation that would make it usable from normal browsers and basically "invisible" for average users. Ethereum also has some efforts in this direction but most likely we will see these things coming together somewhere around Q3/Q4 2016. When these options will be available we will definitely make use of them as we understand the potential adoption gains we can have by removing the need to install an app. In the meantime we were thinking to setup a few IPFS gateways that would serve a static version of the content in the form of a normal website (http://akasha.world http://akasha.world for example). This way people can at least access the content/read/share it over traditional Web 2.0 mediums. On the other hand, if they want to interact with the network (publish/comment/vote) then they would need to install the app. Not the best solution, we know, but seems like a decent compromise while the tech "gets there". > PS., not sure if you noticed, but some of your comments on this page are marked dead. I have no idea why this has been done to you. I have no idea why this was done either...Did I broke any HN posting rule without knowing?
MihaiAlisie 10y ago
Hello everyone, AKASHA founder here. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our project!
- brennannovak 10y ago
  Ambitious project. Good luck :-) - Will Akasha leverage existing social graphs (fbook, twitter, email, phone)? - Does Akasha plan to interoperate with any of them? - Why is a blockchain needed? What aspect of decentralized publishing does this solve? Verifiability of content? Pub/sub relationships?
  - MihaiAlisie 10y ago
    Many thanks! > Will Akasha leverage existing social graphs (fbook, twitter, email, phone) This is actually something we were discussing yesterday with Dr. Gavin Wood, one of the founders of ethereum and ethcore. It is a bit tricky to do without compromising the privacy of the users (associating an insecure form of identification to a key/address) due to the nature of blockchains, but there are a few interesting ideas on how to solve this issue. We’re looking into it but we need to experiment and see which one is the best before deploying something like this inside our application. > Does Akasha plan to interoperate with any of them? Social web 2.0 applications such as Twitter and Facebook are not necessary the friendliest when it comes to interoperability but as we will approach the beta we will look into making an API allowing interesting things to be done in an IFTTT fashion. > Why is a blockchain needed? What aspect of decentralized publishing does this solve? Verifiability of content? Pub/sub relationships? The chain removes completely servers from the picture and enables us to create a truly decentralized publishing mechanism by adding IPFS to the mix - since it is expensive to store content directly on chain, we're storing IPFS hashes on chain. Besides verifiability and pub/sub relationships, identity/profile management and micropayments are also a big pluses that come bundled with the ethereum chain. Hope this answers your questions!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kang 10y ago
A service like this already exists - zapchain.com (bitcoin instead of ether). I have earned billions of satoshi on it but well, it is failing. Because identity could not be solved with partial blockchain, same mistake Akasha is doing. An identity is a proxy for past work done, which the identifier further wishes to use as a proxy for future working. A blockchain bypasses this by directly asking a proof of current work, irrelevant of past work done. When a system does not use an exclusive blockchain, the identity is unable to proxy itself through PoW. Spam rules zapchain now. To make this work they need a PoW Akashacoin.
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  We are aware of zapchain and their issues. I'd like to point that zapchain is not completely decentralized - it is rather a hybrid application using servers for content distribution and blockchain for payments. Regarding security/spam - Proof of Work is not the only way you can secure networks; one of the interesting potential solutions we explored is a sort of Proof of Stake mechanism. Basically this would allow a sort of "deposit" scheme where you would deposit an X amount of tokens for an Y amount of time and depending on the feedback received such as votes for example you would either get the deposit back or lose it. That would make it expensive to spam while not affecting the people generating good content as they would get back their tokens. Things get a bit tricky when we're talking about controversial topics and how that would be treated but that's a different thing. That being said, this is an open and complex discussion that probably will take a while to figure out. In the meantime we're happy with proving that it is possible to have a completely decentralized publishing system that doesn't need any servers, creating in the process a product that empowers people with unfettered freedom of expression. One step at a time :)
  - mr_sturd 10y ago
    Good luck with this, I'm really excited to give it a go. You say that Akasha "doesn't need any servers". If a user is to run a "node" on their PC, how will the network react if a friend/follower is offline when data is requested from them. Also, will a node be runnable on a home server system, allowing for higher-availability and easier backups of personal data?
max_ 10y ago
Here is a simmilar project in Golang https://github.com/vole/vole https://github.com/vole/vole
- mr_sturd 10y ago
  It's a shame that it's using BitTorrent Sync. Use of something open source, with an API, like Syncthing, could allow for a smoother experience in finding users to follow, rather than manually copy-pasting shared secrets. I have had my eye on https://ind.ie/ https://ind.ie/, who forked Syncthing in order to build a social platform upon.
arisAlexis 10y ago
Here is a similar project writedown.co and will be probably transitioned to work with lisk.io. Disclaimer I am the founder
jacobsladder 10y ago
mxuribe 10y ago
I'm really hopeful that this - or for that matter any reasonable platform - deploys and gets used. I'm a big fan of decentralization and hope these kinds of efforts pan out! Good luck to the Akasha folks!
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  Thank you for the kind words and support!
hiddentao 10y ago
Will this use Swarm instead of IPFS once it's out? Also, using contracts costs gas. So how will that be paid for? What's the business model?
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  We will definitely experiment with Swarm once it's out and see how well it fits with our needs. This document covers some of the differences between swarm & IPFS for those interested: https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM For the MVP we will gift a bit of ETH to each user that installs AKASHA and creates a profile. We are talking about enough ETH to enable an average user to publish, comment and vote for a few good days. The "perfect" amount will most likely be determined after observing how real users interact with the application during the alpha. If along the way the user will generate content or comments that will in turn generate upvotes he will refill/increase his ETH balance. It's important to note that users will be able to read entries and comments without needing any ETH so access to information is free in this regard. ETH is required only when you want to interact with the dapp living on the Ethereum network. In any case, from my rough calculations, the costs involved in publishing an entry with 1 tag would be recovered after receiving 1 upvote. All the upvotes beyond that point would be profits going to the author. We are also open to experimenting with things that might enable us to take over some of the interaction costs at the smart contract architecture level, but that is outside the scope of the MVP. As for the business model we don't like ads in general so we want to experiment as much as possible on this side as well to see if we can co-create a sustainable social media network model that does not rely on ads to survive. We don't know yet if that model means a custom token, a micro-fees scheme or something completely different that we can't even imagine at this point so we chose focus first on building the dapp and learn from the actual usage what direction we should take.

120 points by alexandrerond 10y ago

A side note, but couldn't help notice ".world". Wonder why they didn't buy akasha.space which is more suitable because akasha means "space" or "sky" in Indian languages. (500 USD to buy the domain name though. May be affordable?)

vr3690 10y ago

Wasn't clear from the page. What can I use it for? Why does it exist?

bydo 10y ago
>What can I do with AKASHA? >You can publish, share and vote for entries, similar to Medium and other modern publishing platforms, with the difference that your content is actually published over a decentralized network rather than on our servers. Moreover, the votes are bundled with ETH micro transactions so if your content is good you’ll make ETH from it – in a way, mining with your mind.
- askafriend 10y ago
  That sounds.....like fun....I'm serious. Very interesting.
- onion2k 10y ago
  if your content is good you’ll make ETH from it Does it have to be my content? Is there anything to stop me writing a bot that looks for popular Medium/Reddit/HN/whatever articles and post them to AKASHA under my name to harvest ETH? That's exactly what people will do if they believe there's money to be made.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Bombthecat 10y ago
    Nothing, I also guess it is a good chance to make money from cat pictures :)
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  Sounds good except for only using microtransactions for voting (it is also easy to inflate your own votes). I'd prefer to see something closer to a federated system for voting / popularity tracking (however unlikely it may be). To detect spam bots and similar manipulation methods you need trusted humans to filter out the bad votes by spotting the trends. And being able to see the differences in average votes between various voting clusters (different sets of users) would probably be an improvement (through seeing the varying rankings across servers with different userbases).
  - MihaiAlisie 10y ago
    We are using a quadratic voting system for the microtransaction side with weights between 1 to 10. Basically this enables people to easily support their authors/artists/cause via votes/likes with amounts from 1 cent to 1 dollar. Quadratic voting is also quite interesting as it allows people to express "how much they like/dislike" a particular thing - which is not possible with the traditional 1 like/vote per 1 person mechanisms. We are aware of the potential problems that might emerge from this model and this is why we are very interested in exploring various solutions such as Proof of Individuality and reputation systems that can bring both local and global rankings into the mix. These areas are still in the early days of pioneering but we are determined to experiment as much as possible in the search for the best solution. Anyone that is interested in this sort of things is more than welcome to join the discussions on our slack at http://akasha-slack.herokuapp.com/ http://akasha-slack.herokuapp.com/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

wtbob 10y ago

All I can see is a blank white page — doesn't fill me with confidence.

vertex-four 10y ago
I would suggest not browsing the Internet with a broken browser, then. (Hint: NoScript.)
- pstrateman 10y ago
  Websites that are javascript only are broken.
  - zaphar 10y ago
    That's odd. It's not broken for me. Are you sure it's not your browser? Maybe you have a broken javascript interpreter?
MihaiAlisie 10y ago
Hello, akasha.world is at the moment just a presentation website hosted via GitHub Pages. We needed javascript to make it pretty :) If you want to find out more about our project with javascript disabled, our blog should be readable http://blog.akasha.world/ http://blog.akasha.world/
- wtbob 10y ago
  > We needed javascript to make it pretty You can make a page pretty just with CSS; and even if you add behaviour via JavaScript, you can still degrade gracefully. I see nothing but a blank page in both lynx and eww.

exolymph 10y ago

It mystifies me that people seem to think users will suddenly start caring about decentralization and privacy. If either of those things is your social network's USP, you're sunk.

captainmuon 10y ago
Decentralization is more powerful than you think. If I open a social network that is just like Facebook, it will go under. But if it is also properly decentralized (=federated), meaning you can have account at my site but interact with every Facebook user as if you had an account there, Facebook immediately looses it's network effect. And if I offer an additional silly feature, say let users customize the color of their home page, my decentralized net is at an advantage. Unfortunately, Facebook explicitly forbids that kind of interaction, of course. I see two options how decentralized nets could win: 1) Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate (makes sense if you argue that FB has become infrastructure) or without that: 2) Lots of people try to build federated sites, and fail... but one day, Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace, and one of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance.
- amelius 10y ago
  > Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate This could happen faster than you might think. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ([1]) just needs some updating to current technological standards. Quoted: > Interconnectedness. Since communications services exhibit network effects and positive externalities, new entrants would face barriers to entry if they could not interconnect their networks with those of the incumbent carriers. Thus, another key provision of the 1996 Act sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks with one another, imposing additional requirements on the incumbents because they might desire to restrict competitive entry by denying such interconnection or by setting terms, conditions, and rates that could undermine the ability of the new entrants to compete. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
  - 10y ago

amelius 10y ago

I was hoping to read something about the protocols. For example, how do they handle access control (e.g. so that only friends can see my status, photos, or so that groups can be managed)? How are updates broadcasted (without polling)?

MihaiAlisie 10y ago
Hi there! In the first release/MVP stage AKASHA will resemble a lot to Twitter/Medium in this regard, in the sense that your published entries will be public and visible by everyone. That being said, access control is on our roadmap but it is not a priority at the moment. The updates are broadcasted via the Ethereum network through a smart contract that records and dispatches events associated with profiles such as new entries. This way, the people that follow you on AKASHA will receive in their stream a notification letting them know that a new entry has been published and can be accessed via IPFS at hash X.
- omphalos 10y ago
  Can people join this network without downloading an application - will it be available in the browser? The reason I ask is most decentralized applications up to this point require a download to start your own node (zeronet for example). Availability from the browser I believe is important for decentralized applications because it lowers the barrier to entry for consumers. PS., not sure if you noticed, but some of your comments on this page are marked dead. I have no idea why this has been done to you.
  - MihaiAlisie 10y ago
    Hello, In the first phase an application is needed as interacting with the Ethereum/IPFS network currently requires a local Ethereum/IPFS node. IPFS for example is currently working on a javascript implementation that would make it usable from normal browsers and basically "invisible" for average users. Ethereum also has some efforts in this direction but most likely we will see these things coming together somewhere around Q3/Q4 2016. When these options will be available we will definitely make use of them as we understand the potential adoption gains we can have by removing the need to install an app. In the meantime we were thinking to setup a few IPFS gateways that would serve a static version of the content in the form of a normal website (http://akasha.world http://akasha.world for example). This way people can at least access the content/read/share it over traditional Web 2.0 mediums. On the other hand, if they want to interact with the network (publish/comment/vote) then they would need to install the app. Not the best solution, we know, but seems like a decent compromise while the tech "gets there". > PS., not sure if you noticed, but some of your comments on this page are marked dead. I have no idea why this has been done to you. I have no idea why this was done either...Did I broke any HN posting rule without knowing?

MihaiAlisie 10y ago

Hello everyone, AKASHA founder here. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our project!

brennannovak 10y ago
Ambitious project. Good luck :-) - Will Akasha leverage existing social graphs (fbook, twitter, email, phone)? - Does Akasha plan to interoperate with any of them? - Why is a blockchain needed? What aspect of decentralized publishing does this solve? Verifiability of content? Pub/sub relationships?
- MihaiAlisie 10y ago
  Many thanks! > Will Akasha leverage existing social graphs (fbook, twitter, email, phone) This is actually something we were discussing yesterday with Dr. Gavin Wood, one of the founders of ethereum and ethcore. It is a bit tricky to do without compromising the privacy of the users (associating an insecure form of identification to a key/address) due to the nature of blockchains, but there are a few interesting ideas on how to solve this issue. We’re looking into it but we need to experiment and see which one is the best before deploying something like this inside our application. > Does Akasha plan to interoperate with any of them? Social web 2.0 applications such as Twitter and Facebook are not necessary the friendliest when it comes to interoperability but as we will approach the beta we will look into making an API allowing interesting things to be done in an IFTTT fashion. > Why is a blockchain needed? What aspect of decentralized publishing does this solve? Verifiability of content? Pub/sub relationships? The chain removes completely servers from the picture and enables us to create a truly decentralized publishing mechanism by adding IPFS to the mix - since it is expensive to store content directly on chain, we're storing IPFS hashes on chain. Besides verifiability and pub/sub relationships, identity/profile management and micropayments are also a big pluses that come bundled with the ethereum chain. Hope this answers your questions!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kang 10y ago

A service like this already exists - zapchain.com (bitcoin instead of ether). I have earned billions of satoshi on it but well, it is failing. Because identity could not be solved with partial blockchain, same mistake Akasha is doing. An identity is a proxy for past work done, which the identifier further wishes to use as a proxy for future working. A blockchain bypasses this by directly asking a proof of current work, irrelevant of past work done. When a system does not use an exclusive blockchain, the identity is unable to proxy itself through PoW. Spam rules zapchain now. To make this work they need a PoW Akashacoin.

MihaiAlisie 10y ago
We are aware of zapchain and their issues. I'd like to point that zapchain is not completely decentralized - it is rather a hybrid application using servers for content distribution and blockchain for payments. Regarding security/spam - Proof of Work is not the only way you can secure networks; one of the interesting potential solutions we explored is a sort of Proof of Stake mechanism. Basically this would allow a sort of "deposit" scheme where you would deposit an X amount of tokens for an Y amount of time and depending on the feedback received such as votes for example you would either get the deposit back or lose it. That would make it expensive to spam while not affecting the people generating good content as they would get back their tokens. Things get a bit tricky when we're talking about controversial topics and how that would be treated but that's a different thing. That being said, this is an open and complex discussion that probably will take a while to figure out. In the meantime we're happy with proving that it is possible to have a completely decentralized publishing system that doesn't need any servers, creating in the process a product that empowers people with unfettered freedom of expression. One step at a time :)
- mr_sturd 10y ago
  Good luck with this, I'm really excited to give it a go. You say that Akasha "doesn't need any servers". If a user is to run a "node" on their PC, how will the network react if a friend/follower is offline when data is requested from them. Also, will a node be runnable on a home server system, allowing for higher-availability and easier backups of personal data?

max_ 10y ago

Here is a simmilar project in Golang https://github.com/vole/vole https://github.com/vole/vole

mr_sturd 10y ago
It's a shame that it's using BitTorrent Sync. Use of something open source, with an API, like Syncthing, could allow for a smoother experience in finding users to follow, rather than manually copy-pasting shared secrets. I have had my eye on https://ind.ie/ https://ind.ie/, who forked Syncthing in order to build a social platform upon.

arisAlexis 10y ago

Here is a similar project writedown.co and will be probably transitioned to work with lisk.io. Disclaimer I am the founder

jacobsladder 10y ago

mxuribe 10y ago

I'm really hopeful that this - or for that matter any reasonable platform - deploys and gets used. I'm a big fan of decentralization and hope these kinds of efforts pan out! Good luck to the Akasha folks!

MihaiAlisie 10y ago
Thank you for the kind words and support!

hiddentao 10y ago

Will this use Swarm instead of IPFS once it's out? Also, using contracts costs gas. So how will that be paid for? What's the business model?

MihaiAlisie 10y ago
We will definitely experiment with Swarm once it's out and see how well it fits with our needs. This document covers some of the differences between swarm & IPFS for those interested: https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM For the MVP we will gift a bit of ETH to each user that installs AKASHA and creates a profile. We are talking about enough ETH to enable an average user to publish, comment and vote for a few good days. The "perfect" amount will most likely be determined after observing how real users interact with the application during the alpha. If along the way the user will generate content or comments that will in turn generate upvotes he will refill/increase his ETH balance. It's important to note that users will be able to read entries and comments without needing any ETH so access to information is free in this regard. ETH is required only when you want to interact with the dapp living on the Ethereum network. In any case, from my rough calculations, the costs involved in publishing an entry with 1 tag would be recovered after receiving 1 upvote. All the upvotes beyond that point would be profits going to the author. We are also open to experimenting with things that might enable us to take over some of the interaction costs at the smart contract architecture level, but that is outside the scope of the MVP. As for the business model we don't like ads in general so we want to experiment as much as possible on this side as well to see if we can co-create a sustainable social media network model that does not rely on ads to survive. We don't know yet if that model means a custom token, a micro-fees scheme or something completely different that we can't even imagine at this point so we chose focus first on building the dapp and learn from the actual usage what direction we should take.