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For someone invested in decentralized protocols, it just sounds like people trying to reinvent the wheel. "let’s make it decentralized" "wow, very cool idea".

by ploum 4y ago

For someone invested in decentralized protocols, it just sounds like people trying to reinvent the wheel. "let’s make it decentralized" "wow, very cool idea". Those guys are business guys but they have no idea what they are talking about. They don’t know the first bit about technical decentralization, about prior art, about the politics involved. They are so close of realizing that their companies are Frankenstein monsters they don’t control anymore. They are so close of getting the whole idea that Stallman is trying to articulate for the late 40 years. But they are locked in their business/company/VC model and can’t get out of that.

andrewflnr 4y ago
> Twitter started as a protocol. It should have never been a company. That was the original sin. Dorsey seems to have figured it out.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- saryant 4y ago
  No he’s just making shit up. That statement of his is completely untrue.
- once_inc 4y ago
  Considering Dorsey's active participation and evangelising on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, I expect that he will be working in that direction; building a messaging protocol based on the Lighting Network that allows users to upvote with satoshis. This monetises the user engagement and makes bots less feasible, aligning user incentives.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    - mw888 4y ago
      Your comment serves no purpose, offers no feedback, and is rude.
      - bamboozled 4y ago
        It's a genuine question? It sounds so outrageous I couldn't tell if it was satire or not? We've all become a little sensitive?
    - irusensei 4y ago
      Please refrain from low quality snarky comments. > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.[0] [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - willis936 4y ago
    Yes, no person or organization uses money to influence social discourse.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Dorsey has been hitting at that for a while but AFAIK never delivered. Meanwhile some guys created Nostr[0] that is so simple and functional its comical. Basically you sign a message and broadcast to one or more relays. Its not even p2p. Keet/Holepunch[1] are based on DHT and some bittorrenty things. Basically serverless and p2p as far as I can understand. There is some scrutiny about the source code not being available but they said the project is really nascent and as soon as they clean the code they'll release it. I'd like to see that. [0] - https://nostr.com https://nostr.com [1] - https://keet.io https://keet.io None of the above projects are blockchain based and require tokens to transact although they might have some LN integration in the future.
  - drc500free 4y ago
    "Upvoting messages with currency" is literally describing what advertising is.
    - rocqua 4y ago
      Except that you can limit to 1 upvote per account, and use (centralized) moderation to handle sybil attacks by removing upvotes with discretion.
      - wanderingbort 4y ago
        If you could do that effectively then what is the point of spending money to upvote? Also look into the current state of play to earn games [1] and some NFT auction methods where people are selling their participation quite openly [2] It’s no longer a Sybil attack if it is real people who value their moral “vote” less than the market rate of that vote. It’s just an open market encouraging wealthy participants to on-board buyable users. [1] https://restofworld.org/2021/axie-infinity/ https://restofworld.org/2021/axie-infinity/ [2] https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/04/29/please-dont-buy-a-kycd-wallet-for-the-bored-apes-teams-otherside-mint/ https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/04/29/please-dont-buy-a...
        rocqua 4y ago
        The idea would be a fixed price for an upvote. Not to create a market, but for two other advantages. It creates a cost for bots and hence a cost for massive spam campaigns. And it creates compensation to the system for processing and displaying the content. As for people selling their vote, this occurs even without costs in the form of vote brigading, and seems pretty controllable on e.g. reddit.
        wanderingbort 4y ago
        The market isn’t the price of the vote, it’s the price to buy someone’s vote. That’s a race to the bottom. Right now the cheapest option is a bot. A perfect anti-bot solution shifts this so that the cheapest option is the global poor. Zoom out, is the problem is manipulation not bots. Bots are just the best weapon today. Does this new scheme present a sustainable solution to manipulation? I don’t believe it does. over time, power and wealth will be more able to pay the per vote cost and raising it will disproportionately deny real peoples voice. Looping back, this is why I asked if any of it was needed once we assume the presence of a working moderation scheme (which you credit as the protection today from vote buying).
  - ricardobayes 4y ago
    It sounds good at first, but then the biggest issue is that a platform like this becomes really susceptible to manipulation/pushing an agenda etc. Anonymous 'vote buying' is even worse than working with ads.
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      Twitter likes / retweets are already regularly paid for. There are paid networks of accounts that will upvote and follow for money.
  - swamp40 4y ago
    It's funny how you can take a multi-billion dollar idea, write it all out for the world to see, and it still gets ignored or ridiculed by everyone. It's also funny how you can take two of the greatest minds in our generation and dismiss them out of hand, mostly due to your previous biases of what you think they are all about. If email cost the sender 1 cent per email, spam could have been eliminated. This system would do the same thing. 5 cents to post, 1 cent to comment, 1 cent to upvote. 80% of money goes to poster and commenters. 20% pays the bills. Maybe a downvote option that costs 2 cents? Influencers make money. Users pay a small proportional amount to interact, free to read. Decentralization is the key, just like for crypto. No one controls the content. No one censors Hunter Biden's laptop posts. You load up with $5 and add more when you are depleted. Everything in sats or ADA, etc. It stays in your "wallet" so it can't be frozen or taken from you. You can have a tipping and buying system as well, all built in. This will happen.
    - licebmi__at__ 4y ago
      You can read the same idea, time and time again in this same website, I even have heard this exact multi-billion dollar idea from my drunk cousin who is into crypto but has no idea of the complexities of running a tech business. So like always the common wisdom is that more than the idea, what matters is the implementation. And while I also share the negative outlook on these 2, I'm aware that they are part of the group who could get it done, as they have the business know how, the connections and the money. Yet like Trump before with his social network, I still don't think they can beat the network effect.
    - unboxingelf 4y ago
      Mentioning BTC/LN on HN has a way of provoking irrational group think. It’s frustrating that proposing a v2 of the ad-laden hellscape that is the current internet economic structure is so vehemently opposed. But then again most folks here are probably paid in some way, shape, or form from this status quo. Anyway, great synopsis above.
- bmitc 4y ago
  That’s easy for him to say after he’s become a billionaire making it a company. Can one give any actual credence to such a sentiment? I mean, Twitter is an internet version of Post-It notes. I don’t even know what he means that it started out as a “protocol”.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    True, cheap talk from him now. I only meant to push back against the idea that "they are locked in their business/company/VC model and can’t get out of that", which is directly contradicted in the source we're discussing.
  - robswc 4y ago
    It's also easy to say in hindsight too. Were there plenty of times/chances to see the writing on the wall? Sure... but I really do think when you're in that deep, the money isn't really a factor, its the "life." Twitter ran Jack more than Jack ran Twitter.
  - onehair 4y ago
    No one is born knowing it all. People learn along the way, people change, people get greedy for a moment then have more time to relax once they've arrived to a comfy state, then reflect and either get more greedy or have enough head space to realize what they've done and regret. Granted, Rare are those who regret and what to do better, but yes, I can give credence to such sentiment.
    - bmitc 4y ago
      It’s strange that he has apparently felt this way a long time, started Twitter as a “protocol”, was at the helm of Twitter, but now that he’s a billionaire thinks it was all a mistake. He could have made what he describes or apparently believes in but at the cost of becoming a billionaire. It’s a little too convenient isn’t it? Sounds like a billionaire just wanting to be the smartest person in the room. This is a common pattern amongst all these billionaires.
      - 4y ago
- esotericimpl 4y ago
bamboozled 4y ago
When you hear Musk being interviewed you'd certainly have to believe otherwise, he definitely claims he is the brains behind a lot of innovation.
- feet 4y ago
  That's hilarious, because for someone with a literal degree in physics he doesn't seem to understand the physics at all
  - Huh1337 4y ago
    Can you provide some examples?
    - feet 4y ago
      The most prominent is the hyperloop. The energy needed to maintain the vacuum entirely cancels out, and possibly adds some, energy savings from reduced friction. Plus the speed gained would be negligible compared to a well designed atmospheric bullet train. It adds cost, complexity, and energy usage for literally no reason
      - Huh1337 4y ago
        I never heard anybody claim that Hyperloop vacuum tunnels were about energy savings. Hyperloop is about replacing air travel with an alternative that could offer similar or higher speeds. If you want to go 1000+ km/h (or multiples) reducing friction is a requirement and definitely not because of energy savings but because the vehicle would heat up and/or break, and then of course the turbulence and noise.
        feet 4y ago
        So which designs have gotten close to a significant increase over normal atmospheric bullet trains? That's addressed in my comment
dmw_ng 4y ago
Dorsey is an engineer
- graycrow 4y ago
  And so is Musk.
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    Is the work you do to your credit or your boss's? I fundamentally reject the argument that being financially invested in engineering projects makes him an engineer.
    - joenot443 4y ago
      I'm of the opinion that engineering things is what makes someone an engineer. If you're under the impression that Musk's entire career has been in management, I'd encourage you to do some more reading.
      - bmitc 4y ago
        I’d encourage you to do the same. Give concrete examples.
        SyzygistSix 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200... https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20 https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20 https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enough-about-rockets-to-create-and-run-SpaceX/answer/Jim-Cantrell?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enou... Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854s
fredgrott 4y ago
It's called the Media business model where we get the user to trade privacy for features and earn revenue on abusing privacy. Given Apple's moves in the iOS app space and the way young people talk and behave; the next social media platform will be a low paid app that has full privacy and is non-ad revenue based and is centralized. It will be some company that is super transparent but at the same time has figured out that one can provide paid services of value user of social media would pay for. It might even be one of us that is reading this message that goes on to form such a social platform.
- BackBlast 4y ago
  I believe that you are close to the mark the market is starting to look for. I hope to build a competitive system as I think I know how to bring it together with a workable business model. When I have the time...
- rglullis 4y ago
  It exists for 5 years already: https://communick.com https://communick.com
orky56 4y ago
God forbid someone learns business and has produced multiple successful businesses in some of the most forward looking, technical fields. That does not immediately disqualify their ability to know technical topics and if even may signal quite the opposite. This level of elitism often among the HN crowd creates an echo chamber that stifles innovation since it arbitrarily discriminates the dissemination & mixing of ideas that aren't fully "technical". These guys understand the concepts and can communicate with each other with that shared understanding and constructs. It's wild but that's how the top people within the field may chat, simply, efficient, and pointedly.
- stiltzkin 4y ago
  Welcome to the eternal september of HN, missed the beginning of HN you could have conversation even with CEOs.
  - PhantomBKB 4y ago
    People want openness, transparency, freedom, participation regardless of whether they are CEOs or not. Now HN's got it.
    - stiltzkin 4y ago
      There was all of that from the beginning. The difference now HN is well known world wide.
simantel 4y ago
I think Dalton Caldwell laid out an interesting vision of the "Twitter as protocol" argument: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been

by ploum 4y ago

andrewflnr 4y ago

> Twitter started as a protocol. It should have never been a company. That was the original sin. Dorsey seems to have figured it out.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
saryant 4y ago
No he’s just making shit up. That statement of his is completely untrue.
once_inc 4y ago
Considering Dorsey's active participation and evangelising on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, I expect that he will be working in that direction; building a messaging protocol based on the Lighting Network that allows users to upvote with satoshis. This monetises the user engagement and makes bots less feasible, aligning user incentives.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  - mw888 4y ago
    Your comment serves no purpose, offers no feedback, and is rude.
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      It's a genuine question? It sounds so outrageous I couldn't tell if it was satire or not? We've all become a little sensitive?
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Please refrain from low quality snarky comments. > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.[0] [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- willis936 4y ago
  Yes, no person or organization uses money to influence social discourse.
- irusensei 4y ago
  Dorsey has been hitting at that for a while but AFAIK never delivered. Meanwhile some guys created Nostr[0] that is so simple and functional its comical. Basically you sign a message and broadcast to one or more relays. Its not even p2p. Keet/Holepunch[1] are based on DHT and some bittorrenty things. Basically serverless and p2p as far as I can understand. There is some scrutiny about the source code not being available but they said the project is really nascent and as soon as they clean the code they'll release it. I'd like to see that. [0] - https://nostr.com https://nostr.com [1] - https://keet.io https://keet.io None of the above projects are blockchain based and require tokens to transact although they might have some LN integration in the future.
- drc500free 4y ago
  "Upvoting messages with currency" is literally describing what advertising is.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    Except that you can limit to 1 upvote per account, and use (centralized) moderation to handle sybil attacks by removing upvotes with discretion.
    - wanderingbort 4y ago
      If you could do that effectively then what is the point of spending money to upvote? Also look into the current state of play to earn games [1] and some NFT auction methods where people are selling their participation quite openly [2] It’s no longer a Sybil attack if it is real people who value their moral “vote” less than the market rate of that vote. It’s just an open market encouraging wealthy participants to on-board buyable users. [1] https://restofworld.org/2021/axie-infinity/ https://restofworld.org/2021/axie-infinity/ [2] https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/04/29/please-dont-buy-a-kycd-wallet-for-the-bored-apes-teams-otherside-mint/ https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/04/29/please-dont-buy-a...
      - rocqua 4y ago
        The idea would be a fixed price for an upvote. Not to create a market, but for two other advantages. It creates a cost for bots and hence a cost for massive spam campaigns. And it creates compensation to the system for processing and displaying the content. As for people selling their vote, this occurs even without costs in the form of vote brigading, and seems pretty controllable on e.g. reddit.
        wanderingbort 4y ago
        The market isn’t the price of the vote, it’s the price to buy someone’s vote. That’s a race to the bottom. Right now the cheapest option is a bot. A perfect anti-bot solution shifts this so that the cheapest option is the global poor. Zoom out, is the problem is manipulation not bots. Bots are just the best weapon today. Does this new scheme present a sustainable solution to manipulation? I don’t believe it does. over time, power and wealth will be more able to pay the per vote cost and raising it will disproportionately deny real peoples voice. Looping back, this is why I asked if any of it was needed once we assume the presence of a working moderation scheme (which you credit as the protection today from vote buying).
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  It sounds good at first, but then the biggest issue is that a platform like this becomes really susceptible to manipulation/pushing an agenda etc. Anonymous 'vote buying' is even worse than working with ads.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Twitter likes / retweets are already regularly paid for. There are paid networks of accounts that will upvote and follow for money.
- swamp40 4y ago
  It's funny how you can take a multi-billion dollar idea, write it all out for the world to see, and it still gets ignored or ridiculed by everyone. It's also funny how you can take two of the greatest minds in our generation and dismiss them out of hand, mostly due to your previous biases of what you think they are all about. If email cost the sender 1 cent per email, spam could have been eliminated. This system would do the same thing. 5 cents to post, 1 cent to comment, 1 cent to upvote. 80% of money goes to poster and commenters. 20% pays the bills. Maybe a downvote option that costs 2 cents? Influencers make money. Users pay a small proportional amount to interact, free to read. Decentralization is the key, just like for crypto. No one controls the content. No one censors Hunter Biden's laptop posts. You load up with $5 and add more when you are depleted. Everything in sats or ADA, etc. It stays in your "wallet" so it can't be frozen or taken from you. You can have a tipping and buying system as well, all built in. This will happen.
  - licebmi__at__ 4y ago
    You can read the same idea, time and time again in this same website, I even have heard this exact multi-billion dollar idea from my drunk cousin who is into crypto but has no idea of the complexities of running a tech business. So like always the common wisdom is that more than the idea, what matters is the implementation. And while I also share the negative outlook on these 2, I'm aware that they are part of the group who could get it done, as they have the business know how, the connections and the money. Yet like Trump before with his social network, I still don't think they can beat the network effect.
  - unboxingelf 4y ago
    Mentioning BTC/LN on HN has a way of provoking irrational group think. It’s frustrating that proposing a v2 of the ad-laden hellscape that is the current internet economic structure is so vehemently opposed. But then again most folks here are probably paid in some way, shape, or form from this status quo. Anyway, great synopsis above.
bmitc 4y ago
That’s easy for him to say after he’s become a billionaire making it a company. Can one give any actual credence to such a sentiment? I mean, Twitter is an internet version of Post-It notes. I don’t even know what he means that it started out as a “protocol”.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  True, cheap talk from him now. I only meant to push back against the idea that "they are locked in their business/company/VC model and can’t get out of that", which is directly contradicted in the source we're discussing.
- robswc 4y ago
  It's also easy to say in hindsight too. Were there plenty of times/chances to see the writing on the wall? Sure... but I really do think when you're in that deep, the money isn't really a factor, its the "life." Twitter ran Jack more than Jack ran Twitter.
- onehair 4y ago
  No one is born knowing it all. People learn along the way, people change, people get greedy for a moment then have more time to relax once they've arrived to a comfy state, then reflect and either get more greedy or have enough head space to realize what they've done and regret. Granted, Rare are those who regret and what to do better, but yes, I can give credence to such sentiment.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    It’s strange that he has apparently felt this way a long time, started Twitter as a “protocol”, was at the helm of Twitter, but now that he’s a billionaire thinks it was all a mistake. He could have made what he describes or apparently believes in but at the cost of becoming a billionaire. It’s a little too convenient isn’t it? Sounds like a billionaire just wanting to be the smartest person in the room. This is a common pattern amongst all these billionaires.
    - 4y ago
esotericimpl 4y ago

bamboozled 4y ago

When you hear Musk being interviewed you'd certainly have to believe otherwise, he definitely claims he is the brains behind a lot of innovation.

feet 4y ago
That's hilarious, because for someone with a literal degree in physics he doesn't seem to understand the physics at all
- Huh1337 4y ago
  Can you provide some examples?
  - feet 4y ago
    The most prominent is the hyperloop. The energy needed to maintain the vacuum entirely cancels out, and possibly adds some, energy savings from reduced friction. Plus the speed gained would be negligible compared to a well designed atmospheric bullet train. It adds cost, complexity, and energy usage for literally no reason
    - Huh1337 4y ago
      I never heard anybody claim that Hyperloop vacuum tunnels were about energy savings. Hyperloop is about replacing air travel with an alternative that could offer similar or higher speeds. If you want to go 1000+ km/h (or multiples) reducing friction is a requirement and definitely not because of energy savings but because the vehicle would heat up and/or break, and then of course the turbulence and noise.
      - feet 4y ago
        So which designs have gotten close to a significant increase over normal atmospheric bullet trains? That's addressed in my comment

dmw_ng 4y ago

Dorsey is an engineer

graycrow 4y ago
And so is Musk.
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  Is the work you do to your credit or your boss's? I fundamentally reject the argument that being financially invested in engineering projects makes him an engineer.
  - joenot443 4y ago
    I'm of the opinion that engineering things is what makes someone an engineer. If you're under the impression that Musk's entire career has been in management, I'd encourage you to do some more reading.
    - bmitc 4y ago
      I’d encourage you to do the same. Give concrete examples.
      - SyzygistSix 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200... https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20 https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20 https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enough-about-rockets-to-create-and-run-SpaceX/answer/Jim-Cantrell?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enou... Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854s

fredgrott 4y ago

It's called the Media business model where we get the user to trade privacy for features and earn revenue on abusing privacy. Given Apple's moves in the iOS app space and the way young people talk and behave; the next social media platform will be a low paid app that has full privacy and is non-ad revenue based and is centralized. It will be some company that is super transparent but at the same time has figured out that one can provide paid services of value user of social media would pay for. It might even be one of us that is reading this message that goes on to form such a social platform.

BackBlast 4y ago
I believe that you are close to the mark the market is starting to look for. I hope to build a competitive system as I think I know how to bring it together with a workable business model. When I have the time...
rglullis 4y ago
It exists for 5 years already: https://communick.com https://communick.com

orky56 4y ago

God forbid someone learns business and has produced multiple successful businesses in some of the most forward looking, technical fields. That does not immediately disqualify their ability to know technical topics and if even may signal quite the opposite. This level of elitism often among the HN crowd creates an echo chamber that stifles innovation since it arbitrarily discriminates the dissemination & mixing of ideas that aren't fully "technical". These guys understand the concepts and can communicate with each other with that shared understanding and constructs. It's wild but that's how the top people within the field may chat, simply, efficient, and pointedly.

stiltzkin 4y ago
Welcome to the eternal september of HN, missed the beginning of HN you could have conversation even with CEOs.
- PhantomBKB 4y ago
  People want openness, transparency, freedom, participation regardless of whether they are CEOs or not. Now HN's got it.
  - stiltzkin 4y ago
    There was all of that from the beginning. The difference now HN is well known world wide.

simantel 4y ago

I think Dalton Caldwell laid out an interesting vision of the "Twitter as protocol" argument: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been