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Ya, I thought of that but that doesn't really make sense to me either. Open source projects tend to be free to use. Under this plan you need a token. Which cost

by harryh 9y ago

Ya, I thought of that but that doesn't really make sense to me either. Open source projects tend to be free to use. Under this plan you need a token. Which costs money. That's a big change! Kinda sounds like they're saying that if you change your open source project to a proprietary software project you can get people to pay for it. Now that may be true (for some projects at least) but that's fundamentally changing the nature of what it is you're building.

ajmurmann 9y ago
Something like Golem might fall into this category. It's a project that allows you to use tokens to trade computation time on other people's machines. The software is open source and you could probably set up your own network that uses your own tokens, but likely most users will buy and sell computation at the network the founders set up.
- harryh 9y ago
  That's different though. That's paying for a service (compute time). Not somehow getting money for an open source software library.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    The team got $8.6 million in the initial token sale though. I'm pretty sure they also retained a fair number of tokens. Since there is s fixed amount of tokens the value per token should go up if Golem gets many people to use it and thus the value of the retained tokens rewards the team for their success. A scheme like that of course only would work for a very small portion of open source projects. I could see this work though for pretty much anything that needs hosting. In order to join the network you pay tokens to someone else who is providing that hosting. You could clone pretty much any social network that way. Want to have an account or make changes to your account you gotta pay for the computation.
    - harryh 9y ago
      Why would people want to use a social network they have to pay for when all of the existing ones are free?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > Why would people want to use a social network they have to pay for when all of the existing ones are free? Basically, to avoid the problems that come with the "advertiser pays" model, which include: - Getting content you don't want (ads) because it pays the bills, - Not getting content you do want from feeds you are following because limited free reach is used as mechanism to secure sales of ads and paid reach.
        harryh 9y ago
        Empirically speaking, very few people care about those things. And, given metcalfe's law, their opinion pretty much doesn't matter.
wmf 9y ago
I don't think app coins/tokens are intended for traditional software that runs in isolation. The proponents of this stuff are talking about P2P networks where other computers provide service to you (e.g. storing your data), so the software may be open source but the service provided by the network is not free. Of course, some hustlers may try to use app coins in a cynical, Adobe-like business model where you have to pay rent to run software on your own computer and they may be justifiably rebuked.
- harryh 9y ago
  Ya, I agree with you. Weird that the authors of the essay linked here stretched things significantly further.

by harryh 9y ago

ajmurmann 9y ago

Something like Golem might fall into this category. It's a project that allows you to use tokens to trade computation time on other people's machines. The software is open source and you could probably set up your own network that uses your own tokens, but likely most users will buy and sell computation at the network the founders set up.

harryh 9y ago
That's different though. That's paying for a service (compute time). Not somehow getting money for an open source software library.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  The team got $8.6 million in the initial token sale though. I'm pretty sure they also retained a fair number of tokens. Since there is s fixed amount of tokens the value per token should go up if Golem gets many people to use it and thus the value of the retained tokens rewards the team for their success. A scheme like that of course only would work for a very small portion of open source projects. I could see this work though for pretty much anything that needs hosting. In order to join the network you pay tokens to someone else who is providing that hosting. You could clone pretty much any social network that way. Want to have an account or make changes to your account you gotta pay for the computation.
  - harryh 9y ago
    Why would people want to use a social network they have to pay for when all of the existing ones are free?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Why would people want to use a social network they have to pay for when all of the existing ones are free? Basically, to avoid the problems that come with the "advertiser pays" model, which include: - Getting content you don't want (ads) because it pays the bills, - Not getting content you do want from feeds you are following because limited free reach is used as mechanism to secure sales of ads and paid reach.
      - harryh 9y ago
        Empirically speaking, very few people care about those things. And, given metcalfe's law, their opinion pretty much doesn't matter.

wmf 9y ago

I don't think app coins/tokens are intended for traditional software that runs in isolation. The proponents of this stuff are talking about P2P networks where other computers provide service to you (e.g. storing your data), so the software may be open source but the service provided by the network is not free. Of course, some hustlers may try to use app coins in a cynical, Adobe-like business model where you have to pay rent to run software on your own computer and they may be justifiably rebuked.

harryh 9y ago
Ya, I agree with you. Weird that the authors of the essay linked here stretched things significantly further.