4 ms·

Doing full P2P just isn't there yet. It makes total sense but without talking about some web3 Blockchain, it's hard to get everyone to run a distributed databas

by asim 4y ago

Doing full P2P just isn't there yet. It makes total sense but without talking about some web3 Blockchain, it's hard to get everyone to run a distributed database, identity server, etc without it being some single binary.

zeroclip 4y ago
This is where blockchain ends up shining, since there are economic incentives to running a node.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I wonder if for groups up to a certain size, every client could hold all of the data for the group. I think clients do this anyway for caching purposes, but it would mean that as long as any client still had the data, the room wouldn't vanish. It doesn't scale so well, but if there were an easy ability to (say) plug in an S3 bucket URL for offloading older media, then it might work for quite a while.
5560675260 4y ago
An RSS reader does almost everything I'd expect my fully distributed Twitter instance to do. Only thing missing is ability to post, packaged into the same client.
- ephbit 4y ago
  RSS doesn't let people lead discussions through their posts, or did I get something wrong about RSS?
  - 5560675260 4y ago
    Somehow this usecase completely eluded me when I've sought about how easy it is to setup a way for publishing updates / receiving updates from people you're subscribed to. I can't think of a way for getting content from random commenters in a discussion with a passive RSS-like subscription. At least not without forcing OP to host links to everyone's comments, or involving a third party.
  - Kye 4y ago
    Used to be people would follow blogs through RSS as people made posts, response posts, etc. The quality of discussion was much higher.
samatman 4y ago
Urbit exists right now, anyone with a command line can download it, create a comet, and see what they think. It can't be denied that it's a practical option, given that there are thousands (maybe in the tens?) of users who are doing stuff on the network. There's a lot of work which needs to be done, to make the core event loop faster, and enable scaling to the kind of social graph celebrities have. I'm confident in the technical leadership of the project at this point in time. Full disclosure: I've been a user of urbit for many years, and stand to benefit materially if it becomes popular. I neither work on urbit nor on urbit things, never have, and have invested no money in either urbit or its address space. I still think it's a good idea, just like I did when it was barely usable and much weirder.
pessimizer 4y ago
> it's hard to get everyone to run a distributed database, identity server, etc without it being some single binary. Then it's a real problem that people keep doing these projects in Ruby and PHP. It was a problem that was ultimately laughed off when Diaspora chose it, and it's a problem that continues to linger and continues to be laughed off. Make it a single-binary that uses a couple sqlite files in a ~/.directory, and people won't mind running their own server. They could opt to proxy their traffic through a caching intermediary, and we could still federate those caching intermediaries. Being a mule for social traffic could be a commodity service if social were standardized properly. Ideally, one would be able to flip a switch and adjust a few dials on one's own instance to become a caching intermediary for others.
- asim 4y ago
  This is sort of like the ideal and I think after ruby and php moving on to a new language that can compile down to a self executable makes sense. Whether it's rust or Go to whatever else doesn't matter as much as just taking a new shot at writing something that works. I half heartedly look at one of my own projects written in Go and wonder if it would fit the criteria but still some work to do. At the end of the day most people don't want to run anything and those that do end up with pages of documentation and maintenance burden.

by asim 4y ago

zeroclip 4y ago

This is where blockchain ends up shining, since there are economic incentives to running a node.

robertlagrant 4y ago
I wonder if for groups up to a certain size, every client could hold all of the data for the group. I think clients do this anyway for caching purposes, but it would mean that as long as any client still had the data, the room wouldn't vanish. It doesn't scale so well, but if there were an easy ability to (say) plug in an S3 bucket URL for offloading older media, then it might work for quite a while.

5560675260 4y ago

An RSS reader does almost everything I'd expect my fully distributed Twitter instance to do. Only thing missing is ability to post, packaged into the same client.

ephbit 4y ago
RSS doesn't let people lead discussions through their posts, or did I get something wrong about RSS?
- 5560675260 4y ago
  Somehow this usecase completely eluded me when I've sought about how easy it is to setup a way for publishing updates / receiving updates from people you're subscribed to. I can't think of a way for getting content from random commenters in a discussion with a passive RSS-like subscription. At least not without forcing OP to host links to everyone's comments, or involving a third party.
- Kye 4y ago
  Used to be people would follow blogs through RSS as people made posts, response posts, etc. The quality of discussion was much higher.

samatman 4y ago

Urbit exists right now, anyone with a command line can download it, create a comet, and see what they think. It can't be denied that it's a practical option, given that there are thousands (maybe in the tens?) of users who are doing stuff on the network. There's a lot of work which needs to be done, to make the core event loop faster, and enable scaling to the kind of social graph celebrities have. I'm confident in the technical leadership of the project at this point in time. Full disclosure: I've been a user of urbit for many years, and stand to benefit materially if it becomes popular. I neither work on urbit nor on urbit things, never have, and have invested no money in either urbit or its address space. I still think it's a good idea, just like I did when it was barely usable and much weirder.

pessimizer 4y ago

> it's hard to get everyone to run a distributed database, identity server, etc without it being some single binary. Then it's a real problem that people keep doing these projects in Ruby and PHP. It was a problem that was ultimately laughed off when Diaspora chose it, and it's a problem that continues to linger and continues to be laughed off. Make it a single-binary that uses a couple sqlite files in a ~/.directory, and people won't mind running their own server. They could opt to proxy their traffic through a caching intermediary, and we could still federate those caching intermediaries. Being a mule for social traffic could be a commodity service if social were standardized properly. Ideally, one would be able to flip a switch and adjust a few dials on one's own instance to become a caching intermediary for others.

asim 4y ago
This is sort of like the ideal and I think after ruby and php moving on to a new language that can compile down to a self executable makes sense. Whether it's rust or Go to whatever else doesn't matter as much as just taking a new shot at writing something that works. I half heartedly look at one of my own projects written in Go and wonder if it would fit the criteria but still some work to do. At the end of the day most people don't want to run anything and those that do end up with pages of documentation and maintenance burden.