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I'm getting a strong early 00s vibe - the time when P2P was getting traction and people were trying to use it this way and that way. Good ideas, interesting tec

I'm getting a strong early 00s vibe - the time when P2P was getting traction and people were trying to use it this way and that way. Good ideas, interesting tech, but ultimately just a collection of solutions, frameworks and platforms in search of a problem. When the excitement subsided, it turned out that nobody really cared about things to be p2p per se. Nobody cared how it was done, only that it did what they needed. In some cases p2p was the answer, i.e. BitTorrent and the original Skype, in very many others it wasn't and a centralized solution was simpler, cheaper, more reliable or more user-friendly. Diode Drive appears to be in the same spirit. As a technical person I appreciate the solution, but it doesn't appear to be solving any tangible problem in some dramatically better way that also maps onto a better user experience. This is based on the 8 minute "How Diode Drive works" video behind two "Learn More" links. If I got it right, then the idea is that N people can come together as a "trusted group" and use each other as nodes in a storage cluster. They can also share out files from the storage with outsiders and these files will be delivered from one of the nodes in the group. If that's correct, then I'd argue that this is in fact a solution in search of a problem, competing directly with a good old dedicated storage box, e.g. an on-premises NAS that is accessible from the Internet in some way. I can see Diode Drive being used as a stop-gap solution while a proper one is put in place, but that's about it. But I may be missing something. I hope do. But on the surface this is eerie similar to the projects of the p2p glory days from 20 years ago.

IlliOnato 6y ago
Well, as far s I understand it, Diode Drive "competes" with OneDrive and DropBox, not with on-premises NAS. There is a reason OneDrive and DropBox exist and are widely popular, they don't seem a "solution in search of a problem". As I understand it, the idea of Diode Drive is to be just as easy to setup and use, but without trusting Microsoft or Dropbox the company with your files. For individuals and small businesses not having an easy access to sysadmin skills, setting up (and securing!) an "on-premises NAS that is accessible from the Internet in some way" is a no-go. And having a regular file that automatically syncs is far more convenient than syncing files by hand, entering passwords, etc etc. Disclaimer: I know nothing about Diode Drive other than what I gleaned from their website.
stevenicr 6y ago
I see several use cases for something similar to this, especially now that 'firefox send' has been discontinued. sharing homemade pics and videos that include nakedness or even controversial things are not best done via the big tech centralized solutions. Same with sharing non-homemade videos or music. Other use cases come to mind for sensitive business comms and others. I did not watch the video you mentioned about how it works - but scanning a few pages about the product I did not see anything about end-to-end encryption - so this product seems to not check off the needed boxes to do well what I think the use cases could be. I also checked the pricing and feel that it does not lend itself to my trust cases either - free is nice but no skin in the game for sensitive things? I also generally do not invest in monthly/yearly pricing schemes - I like an option to buy once and use version X forever with self hosting options. So my initial curiosity about the title and considering use cases is left with disappointment - although I do think something similar could be made and sold. Interestingly "bitwarden' is also currently in the top couple pages of HN and it sounds similar, but looking into it - it's not.. but it does mention E2E - and mentions a self hosted option - although my initial poking around makes me think it's not for files just a passwd manager. So that's 0 for 2 for me today, thinking by looking at the headlines someone may have created a friends only auth / E2E dbox / Firefox send replacement. Use cases exist, and the big name options are not as private as many would like / use. I know reasons.. but still one can hope :)
- buildanduse 6y ago
  Hey there - it certainly uses E2E encryption - see https://support.diode.io/article/jieo6utgv9-are-my-communications-via-the-diode-network-encrypted https://support.diode.io/article/jieo6utgv9-are-my-communica... and the "A serverless solution using end-to-end encryption" at https://diode.io/products/d-drive/ https://diode.io/products/d-drive/ and "Communications through the Diode Network are 256bit end to end encrypted" at https://diode.io/resources/how-it-works/ https://diode.io/resources/how-it-works/. The entry plan is free - it is pretty capable and should fulfill most use cases to replace Google Drive and Dropbox for individuals. If people need things like password-protected shares and team-member permissions management, then an upgrade is required. The model is pretty typical for SaaS, but we are certainly enabling MORE capabilities for individuals than perhaps typical because we believe a solution like this is really needed by everyone. In terms of buy-once, use forever, Diode doesn't have a great consumer-buyer model for that "yet." However, the Diode Network is open to deploy new apps to, and the free Diode Drive plan can be extended with external tech. Gotta pay the bills somehow :-).

IlliOnato 6y ago

Well, as far s I understand it, Diode Drive "competes" with OneDrive and DropBox, not with on-premises NAS. There is a reason OneDrive and DropBox exist and are widely popular, they don't seem a "solution in search of a problem". As I understand it, the idea of Diode Drive is to be just as easy to setup and use, but without trusting Microsoft or Dropbox the company with your files. For individuals and small businesses not having an easy access to sysadmin skills, setting up (and securing!) an "on-premises NAS that is accessible from the Internet in some way" is a no-go. And having a regular file that automatically syncs is far more convenient than syncing files by hand, entering passwords, etc etc. Disclaimer: I know nothing about Diode Drive other than what I gleaned from their website.

stevenicr 6y ago

I see several use cases for something similar to this, especially now that 'firefox send' has been discontinued. sharing homemade pics and videos that include nakedness or even controversial things are not best done via the big tech centralized solutions. Same with sharing non-homemade videos or music. Other use cases come to mind for sensitive business comms and others. I did not watch the video you mentioned about how it works - but scanning a few pages about the product I did not see anything about end-to-end encryption - so this product seems to not check off the needed boxes to do well what I think the use cases could be. I also checked the pricing and feel that it does not lend itself to my trust cases either - free is nice but no skin in the game for sensitive things? I also generally do not invest in monthly/yearly pricing schemes - I like an option to buy once and use version X forever with self hosting options. So my initial curiosity about the title and considering use cases is left with disappointment - although I do think something similar could be made and sold. Interestingly "bitwarden' is also currently in the top couple pages of HN and it sounds similar, but looking into it - it's not.. but it does mention E2E - and mentions a self hosted option - although my initial poking around makes me think it's not for files just a passwd manager. So that's 0 for 2 for me today, thinking by looking at the headlines someone may have created a friends only auth / E2E dbox / Firefox send replacement. Use cases exist, and the big name options are not as private as many would like / use. I know reasons.. but still one can hope :)

buildanduse 6y ago
Hey there - it certainly uses E2E encryption - see https://support.diode.io/article/jieo6utgv9-are-my-communications-via-the-diode-network-encrypted https://support.diode.io/article/jieo6utgv9-are-my-communica... and the "A serverless solution using end-to-end encryption" at https://diode.io/products/d-drive/ https://diode.io/products/d-drive/ and "Communications through the Diode Network are 256bit end to end encrypted" at https://diode.io/resources/how-it-works/ https://diode.io/resources/how-it-works/. The entry plan is free - it is pretty capable and should fulfill most use cases to replace Google Drive and Dropbox for individuals. If people need things like password-protected shares and team-member permissions management, then an upgrade is required. The model is pretty typical for SaaS, but we are certainly enabling MORE capabilities for individuals than perhaps typical because we believe a solution like this is really needed by everyone. In terms of buy-once, use forever, Diode doesn't have a great consumer-buyer model for that "yet." However, the Diode Network is open to deploy new apps to, and the free Diode Drive plan can be extended with external tech. Gotta pay the bills somehow :-).