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https://twitter.com/pjkundert/status/1590009435619217413 https://twitter.com/pjkundert/status/1590009435619217413 The clutter.social App is a decentralized Twi

https://twitter.com/pjkundert/status/1590009435619217413 https://twitter.com/pjkundert/status/1590009435619217413 The clutter.social App is a decentralized Twitter-like app implemented on Holochain. This one is hosted on https://holo.host https://holo.host (only in public Beta, so it doesn't scale automatically), but illustrates a full-complexity app that is deployed. You can compose this (eg. re-skin it, or build it into another app as a commenting back-end), without having to copy the implementation or host the data. You can also "clone" such an app (with or without any functional changes) and host that fork yourself (eg. on a company’s or family's computers), and nobody can stop you.

dnissley 4y ago
Who pays the hosting bills for the app? If whoever is responsible fails to pay the hosting bills, presumably the app will cease to function and perhaps even disappear? When I fork it, do I maintain my ability to communicate with users who live on the "source" app?
- pjkundert 4y ago
  The App's current owner(s) pay, of course. For traditional "installed" Apps, this could easily be the current (and new) end-users of the App. For a purely hosted app (eg. an App that serves web clients), hosting must be arranged. If the App has no revenue model to pay for hosting, perhaps don't use it (embed it) within your app? That would be a risk. If you "fork" it, then you're responsible to host it -- if it isn't hosted by each client App installation already. The "forked" version of the App hosts its own DHT, so its data is completely distinct from the original. So, yes: there are decisions to be made, but they revolve around long-term viability of the encapsulated/forked App -- not the fundamental possibility of doing so.
niklasd 4y ago
It is somehow telling that you link to a Twitter post instead to a post on clutter.social.
- pjkundert 4y ago
  Yup. This is a web app (so, hosting is required), and it was built in a few days by a newbie and is hosted on a few machines by some randos. But, isn't that ... interesting? That something like this could be built and deployed and -- theoretically scale globally? Just think of what could be done with a bit of planning and a (tiny) revenue model?
  - kitified 4y ago
    > Yup. This is a web app (so, hosting is required), and it was built in a few days by a newbie and is hosted on a few machines by some randos. But, isn't that ... interesting? That something like this could be built and deployed and -- theoretically scale globally? Sure. It is interesting that someone can build a web app, host it on temporary machines, and then one day scale it into a major business model. That's not new to blockchain. That's how the internet works at a fundamental level. What specifically drives blockchain to be useful or novel or interesting in this model? How is this application better for being on chain?
    - pjkundert 4y ago
      Because: this specific App (not "something like" it, but this one written in a few days by a newbie), could potentially scale to 1B users -- and nobody could stop it. Some static assets would need to be tuned in a real App, to be hosted by a CDN like Cloudflare (or, possibly provided by the App's hosting nodes themselves if no CDN is desired), but the App itself would scale. If a certain fraction of those users decided to install it (instead of use it via the Web interface), this scaling would be "free" -- paid for by the eg. 10% who installed it. I've been doing this professionally for 40 years, 30 of which I've spend searching for solutions to specific problems in this domain. I was there in '09 and downloaded Satoshi's reference implementation, and again in '15 for Ethereum; that's "blockchain"; what you call "being on chain". They didn't solve the problems I was trying to find solutions for (scalable consistency in occasionally connected systems). This is new.
      - 4y ago

dnissley 4y ago

Who pays the hosting bills for the app? If whoever is responsible fails to pay the hosting bills, presumably the app will cease to function and perhaps even disappear? When I fork it, do I maintain my ability to communicate with users who live on the "source" app?

pjkundert 4y ago
The App's current owner(s) pay, of course. For traditional "installed" Apps, this could easily be the current (and new) end-users of the App. For a purely hosted app (eg. an App that serves web clients), hosting must be arranged. If the App has no revenue model to pay for hosting, perhaps don't use it (embed it) within your app? That would be a risk. If you "fork" it, then you're responsible to host it -- if it isn't hosted by each client App installation already. The "forked" version of the App hosts its own DHT, so its data is completely distinct from the original. So, yes: there are decisions to be made, but they revolve around long-term viability of the encapsulated/forked App -- not the fundamental possibility of doing so.

niklasd 4y ago

It is somehow telling that you link to a Twitter post instead to a post on clutter.social.

pjkundert 4y ago
Yup. This is a web app (so, hosting is required), and it was built in a few days by a newbie and is hosted on a few machines by some randos. But, isn't that ... interesting? That something like this could be built and deployed and -- theoretically scale globally? Just think of what could be done with a bit of planning and a (tiny) revenue model?
- kitified 4y ago
  > Yup. This is a web app (so, hosting is required), and it was built in a few days by a newbie and is hosted on a few machines by some randos. But, isn't that ... interesting? That something like this could be built and deployed and -- theoretically scale globally? Sure. It is interesting that someone can build a web app, host it on temporary machines, and then one day scale it into a major business model. That's not new to blockchain. That's how the internet works at a fundamental level. What specifically drives blockchain to be useful or novel or interesting in this model? How is this application better for being on chain?
  - pjkundert 4y ago
    Because: this specific App (not "something like" it, but this one written in a few days by a newbie), could potentially scale to 1B users -- and nobody could stop it. Some static assets would need to be tuned in a real App, to be hosted by a CDN like Cloudflare (or, possibly provided by the App's hosting nodes themselves if no CDN is desired), but the App itself would scale. If a certain fraction of those users decided to install it (instead of use it via the Web interface), this scaling would be "free" -- paid for by the eg. 10% who installed it. I've been doing this professionally for 40 years, 30 of which I've spend searching for solutions to specific problems in this domain. I was there in '09 and downloaded Satoshi's reference implementation, and again in '15 for Ethereum; that's "blockchain"; what you call "being on chain". They didn't solve the problems I was trying to find solutions for (scalable consistency in occasionally connected systems). This is new.
    - 4y ago