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> Leaving all that aside - what platforms do you believe hold promise for a decentralized future? https://urbit.org/ https://urbit.org/ I think stuff like mas

> Leaving all that aside - what platforms do you believe hold promise for a decentralized future? https://urbit.org/ https://urbit.org/ I think stuff like mastodon is dead on arrival and will never succeed outside of its extremely niche audience. Urbit has the potential to solve a lot of these issues because of its architecture.

Dylan16807 5y ago
You don't think urbit is extremely niche?
- fossuser 5y ago
  I think it definitely is currently, but it doesn't need to be. The design is such that it's possible for it to be as easy to use as FB. Running your own linux server will never be. The urbit tooling still has a way to go, but it's improving. I'm hopeful that it can get there. Mastodon is trapped by the problems of the existing software stack - they can't escape them: https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/ https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    You're going to need to be more specific about how Mastodon is trapped. If I go install it in docker it's going to involve more lines of code than urbit but no user cares about that. If it's hard to configure that can definitely be fixed/escaped.
    - fossuser 5y ago
      It has a lot to do with federation issues on the modern internet. - Version mismatching and updates - Running the servers (admin, setup, config) - Spam and problematic users Urbit ID fixes the spam issue, Urbit OS fixes the admin and version update issues. Mastodon (but really any non-urbit system) is going to always be a mess of dependencies and things that break. This old post (2010 before urbit was a real thing) goes into most of it: http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming-from.html http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-progra...
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It does seem niche to me, but I’m not sure I understand it at first glance. It feels a bit abstract. Is there an explanation for someone with no context or expertise?
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    I don't know the location of any particularly good explanations, but I'd explain it as one part start-from-scratch distributed/federated computing environment, one part community rebuilding an ecosystem and new internet on top of that environment, and one part performance art by making everything different as if plucked from a parallel universe that diverged at the dawn of computing.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    This is a pretty good one: https://www.hyperstition.al/post/urbit-an-introduction/ https://www.hyperstition.al/post/urbit-an-introduction/ There's also a podcast called Understanding Urbit that's a decent introduction.

Dylan16807 5y ago

You don't think urbit is extremely niche?

fossuser 5y ago
I think it definitely is currently, but it doesn't need to be. The design is such that it's possible for it to be as easy to use as FB. Running your own linux server will never be. The urbit tooling still has a way to go, but it's improving. I'm hopeful that it can get there. Mastodon is trapped by the problems of the existing software stack - they can't escape them: https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/ https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  You're going to need to be more specific about how Mastodon is trapped. If I go install it in docker it's going to involve more lines of code than urbit but no user cares about that. If it's hard to configure that can definitely be fixed/escaped.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    It has a lot to do with federation issues on the modern internet. - Version mismatching and updates - Running the servers (admin, setup, config) - Spam and problematic users Urbit ID fixes the spam issue, Urbit OS fixes the admin and version update issues. Mastodon (but really any non-urbit system) is going to always be a mess of dependencies and things that break. This old post (2010 before urbit was a real thing) goes into most of it: http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming-from.html http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-progra...
throwawaysea 5y ago
It does seem niche to me, but I’m not sure I understand it at first glance. It feels a bit abstract. Is there an explanation for someone with no context or expertise?
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I don't know the location of any particularly good explanations, but I'd explain it as one part start-from-scratch distributed/federated computing environment, one part community rebuilding an ecosystem and new internet on top of that environment, and one part performance art by making everything different as if plucked from a parallel universe that diverged at the dawn of computing.
- fossuser 5y ago
  This is a pretty good one: https://www.hyperstition.al/post/urbit-an-introduction/ https://www.hyperstition.al/post/urbit-an-introduction/ There's also a podcast called Understanding Urbit that's a decent introduction.