4 ms·

The part you buy is dns that runs on ethereum (iirc), but with artificial scarcity because they want to make money. This part is completely pointless, because t

The part you buy is dns that runs on ethereum (iirc), but with artificial scarcity because they want to make money. This part is completely pointless, because the actual system could work as well on ens directly, or even dns. The actual urbit is like docker with standard API for communication between all apps on different containers, but it runs on a lisp-machine like architecture, except instead of lisp there's a new esoteric language called Hoon. If not for the scammy wealth extraction attempt with the name system, I would consider it to be in the same general category as TempleOS - a form of art.

bronzejaguar 7y ago
Funny, because Urbit’s address space has been around for longer than ENS, and makes different design tradeoffs than DNS. https://urbit.org/blog/pki-maze/ https://urbit.org/blog/pki-maze/
matildepark 7y ago
That's a bit cynical, I think. The address space has had a few "official" rationales because it serves a handful of duties at the same time; again, explaining a system is different than explaining a product, but pitching a system as a product is difficult. You often end up framing the system-as-product a specific way each time. > Urbit is a friendly network: a network on which you can assume that a stranger is nice until proven nasty. Friendliness is a direct consequence of scarce, individually owned identities. We're not changing human nature, just creating the right economic incentives. > Most forms of network abuse are "Sybil attacks": they rely on an infinite supply of fresh identities. Scarcity makes reputation work. Spam is a business; if the cost of a new planet exceeds the amount of money you can make by spamming from that planet until its reputation is trashed, there will be no spam. [1] While it's true an intent was selling the parts of the address space Tlon has to fund its development, its business model for consumers going forward isn't really to sell you planets; it's more about bootstrapping the project and offering hosting and support. For investors, purchasing address space (i.e. a galaxy or star within Tlon's ownership) is a way of investing in an asset that could be a source of income while also having some influence over how the network changes in the future, in the way a stockholder would a company. Essentially the address space is an attempt to create and maintain ideal incentives for the ICANN-esque players (galaxies), down to the ISP-esque players (stars) and the everyday user (planets), and their devices or additional users (moons) in a way that sustains the entire network. [1] https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/ https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  These sorts of optimistic beliefs that all people have some inherent good inside them, and that good-faith attempts will rule the day, never seem to survive any actual economic incentives. Some lessons from neoliberalism are worth considering here. Sometimes people want to be fed trashy content. In those situations, planets offering trash will be popular enough to pay for the cost of (renting) the planet. (And make no mistake, rent and landlords are an inherent part of any real-estate offering!) So there will be spam, but it will look and taste like the offerings of Disney and Vicom, of Hasbro and Mattel, of Unilever and GSK. Some lessons from other distributed systems are also worth considering. Technically, messages are always delivered by peers, despite the fact that the messages may have been composed by faraway unknown senders. This leads to local topological reasoning, and webs of trust based on peer-to-peer acquaintance. This can offer better performance and resiliency against attacks than Urbit's top-down neofeudal hierarchy of reputations. I don't really want to support Tlon. If this is truly federated, then there ought not need be any corporate control over the system. History has shown that a few extremely ethical and competent hackers are more valuable in terms of software quality and usability than any sort of corporate planning. I do appreciate that, by explicitly embracing blockchains, Urbit has demystified one part of its design: What makes Urbit property valuable? Only the hidden cryptographic keys at the base of Urbit's own signing system give any scarcity, and thus any value, to otherwise-uninteresting bitstrings. In other words, it's as valuable as ZCash or Bitcoin or any other digital gold; it's a Satoshi scheme. u'i n'ae lojbo .i ku'i ka'eku https://zod.that.world/giveaway/ https://zod.that.world/giveaway/
erikpukinskis 7y ago
The place where a company puts a paywall is always arbitrary. Google puts it at the ad auction, and tries to give away devices and services for (close to) free. Apple puts it at the device purchase and tries to give away the software for (close to) free. These decisions are arbitrary. You just make a bet that you can be attractive in a certain light, and you charge money in that light, and try to make every adjacent activity free.
- yabadabadoes 7y ago
  I just read urbit.org's introduction that sounds like a FSF or EFF release on how we are going to take back computers. You seem to be saying this is sleazy Astroturfing (a .org manifesto) by a company that wants to compete in the system it just condemned.
  - xrd 7y ago
    I think I am restating the point you are making, and I agree. If this project finds a way to charge me a fair price and provides me with the services now only available under a surveillance capitalist model, then I'm fine with it. As Tim O'Reilly says: "Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!" This project shouldn't be left by the side of the road

bronzejaguar 7y ago

Funny, because Urbit’s address space has been around for longer than ENS, and makes different design tradeoffs than DNS. https://urbit.org/blog/pki-maze/ https://urbit.org/blog/pki-maze/

matildepark 7y ago

That's a bit cynical, I think. The address space has had a few "official" rationales because it serves a handful of duties at the same time; again, explaining a system is different than explaining a product, but pitching a system as a product is difficult. You often end up framing the system-as-product a specific way each time. > Urbit is a friendly network: a network on which you can assume that a stranger is nice until proven nasty. Friendliness is a direct consequence of scarce, individually owned identities. We're not changing human nature, just creating the right economic incentives. > Most forms of network abuse are "Sybil attacks": they rely on an infinite supply of fresh identities. Scarcity makes reputation work. Spam is a business; if the cost of a new planet exceeds the amount of money you can make by spamming from that planet until its reputation is trashed, there will be no spam. [1] While it's true an intent was selling the parts of the address space Tlon has to fund its development, its business model for consumers going forward isn't really to sell you planets; it's more about bootstrapping the project and offering hosting and support. For investors, purchasing address space (i.e. a galaxy or star within Tlon's ownership) is a way of investing in an asset that could be a source of income while also having some influence over how the network changes in the future, in the way a stockholder would a company. Essentially the address space is an attempt to create and maintain ideal incentives for the ICANN-esque players (galaxies), down to the ISP-esque players (stars) and the everyday user (planets), and their devices or additional users (moons) in a way that sustains the entire network. [1] https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/ https://urbit.org/blog/the-urbit-address-space/

lidHanteyk 7y ago
These sorts of optimistic beliefs that all people have some inherent good inside them, and that good-faith attempts will rule the day, never seem to survive any actual economic incentives. Some lessons from neoliberalism are worth considering here. Sometimes people want to be fed trashy content. In those situations, planets offering trash will be popular enough to pay for the cost of (renting) the planet. (And make no mistake, rent and landlords are an inherent part of any real-estate offering!) So there will be spam, but it will look and taste like the offerings of Disney and Vicom, of Hasbro and Mattel, of Unilever and GSK. Some lessons from other distributed systems are also worth considering. Technically, messages are always delivered by peers, despite the fact that the messages may have been composed by faraway unknown senders. This leads to local topological reasoning, and webs of trust based on peer-to-peer acquaintance. This can offer better performance and resiliency against attacks than Urbit's top-down neofeudal hierarchy of reputations. I don't really want to support Tlon. If this is truly federated, then there ought not need be any corporate control over the system. History has shown that a few extremely ethical and competent hackers are more valuable in terms of software quality and usability than any sort of corporate planning. I do appreciate that, by explicitly embracing blockchains, Urbit has demystified one part of its design: What makes Urbit property valuable? Only the hidden cryptographic keys at the base of Urbit's own signing system give any scarcity, and thus any value, to otherwise-uninteresting bitstrings. In other words, it's as valuable as ZCash or Bitcoin or any other digital gold; it's a Satoshi scheme. u'i n'ae lojbo .i ku'i ka'eku https://zod.that.world/giveaway/ https://zod.that.world/giveaway/

erikpukinskis 7y ago

The place where a company puts a paywall is always arbitrary. Google puts it at the ad auction, and tries to give away devices and services for (close to) free. Apple puts it at the device purchase and tries to give away the software for (close to) free. These decisions are arbitrary. You just make a bet that you can be attractive in a certain light, and you charge money in that light, and try to make every adjacent activity free.

yabadabadoes 7y ago
I just read urbit.org's introduction that sounds like a FSF or EFF release on how we are going to take back computers. You seem to be saying this is sleazy Astroturfing (a .org manifesto) by a company that wants to compete in the system it just condemned.
- xrd 7y ago
  I think I am restating the point you are making, and I agree. If this project finds a way to charge me a fair price and provides me with the services now only available under a surveillance capitalist model, then I'm fine with it. As Tim O'Reilly says: "Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!" This project shouldn't be left by the side of the road