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I'm glad you've heard of it! There are lots more authors now. I'm not sure why you're so hung up on this one. (He was literally forced out of town. So don't ho

by yebyen 3y ago

I'm glad you've heard of it! There are lots more authors now. I'm not sure why you're so hung up on this one. (He was literally forced out of town. So don't hold him against us.) I was also pretty sure that story would be a good one to explain why it does have a chance. Ever heard of Elinor Ostrom? (I'll assume you didn't hear of her, but you might have heard of Garrett Hardin who came up with Tragedy of the Commons, which I learned was one of the most widely cited "wrong arguments" in the history of publishing papers...) I'm not a scholar in the field, but it was my understanding that retaining the capability for "driving someone especially bad out of town" was literally the thing that made it possible for "tragedy of the commons" to have been found an invalid construct as foregone conclusion or an inevitable outcome of working with communal shared resources. They did studies of the tight-knit communities in Africa where they had managed to avoid the tragedy of the commons for many generations, and I'm sure I'm drastically over-simplifying the conclusion, someone here can explain it better than I can... But so, we've got that going for us, as well. We can kick people out without "losing their shit for them" on the way.

onli 3y ago
It's a weakly motivated opinion I strongly stated :) Urbit back then was strange, it wasn't understandable what it wanted to be, and then there was all the political ramifications from the author's ideology. So in my mind it's still marked as dead, and if things really changed, I'll add "sadly". Because I won't be alone with that. I had just a very short look at the project now, it does look different than what I saw back then. I'm just not convinced "inventing the stack completely anew" and "needing to pay for identities" can result in something that wins users, but hey, who knows. The thing that was attractive back then and still is, is the part about "one programmer should be capable to understand the whole stack." But that's only attractive for devs. In the end all the background doesn't matter, only how the layer behaves that users can interact with. On the one hand that's good for Urbit, its history doesn't matter much. One the other it's not as good, since I don't see how Urbit could be a foundation for a service that wins against regular apps or websites. Publishing, reading, shopping, listing to music and watching videos, how can Urbit improve any of that?
- yebyen 3y ago
  Well I mean, you don't actually need to pay for it, you only need to "make them cost something." (You know, like a JPEG? Nobody really pays for these, do they?) It's just a bit of friction, think of it like I'm giving you an egg. You need to carry the egg around with you and keep it safe, I'm not giving you another one. OK, maybe just one more. (But do try not to break it!) But there are egg-as-a-service managers so you don't really have to carry the egg, just pay a small fee and someone will handle it for you according to the protocol. They are actually giving the managed accounts away now, if you wanted to remove all that cost and hosting friction and see what "superconducting feels like" J/K The point about the identities is that they shouldn't be easily forged. If enough people do have them, if they're actually buying them, they won't have bought just one. They'll have them in bulk, they'll hold surplus, and they'll be careful about who they invite. You'll probably get one at no cost. Unless of course it's really becoming popular, and there is real scarcity. If Urbit is still around long enough for there to be any question of real scarcity, that will have been something else! Just don't expect to purchase another one on any street-corner if you burned yours by sending spam, (then well it's better to have been a productive spam that made you at least back in value as much as the burned ID cost!) Nobody really pays for this now. It's all million dollar art projects, and I think it's like the old days when you just went on IRC and who knows what you'll find! I'm really glad to see you're willing to debate this in spite of having a strong opinion front-loaded, and I'm sure you're right about most people that heard of Urbit so far, ...but I think you'll find that many people will have only heard the good news and intentionally shied away from the controversy. We humans don't like conflict. No need to create it fresh from the bones of our ancestors, I say. Or most people in reality probably haven't heard of Urbit yet at all.

by yebyen 3y ago

onli 3y ago

It's a weakly motivated opinion I strongly stated :) Urbit back then was strange, it wasn't understandable what it wanted to be, and then there was all the political ramifications from the author's ideology. So in my mind it's still marked as dead, and if things really changed, I'll add "sadly". Because I won't be alone with that. I had just a very short look at the project now, it does look different than what I saw back then. I'm just not convinced "inventing the stack completely anew" and "needing to pay for identities" can result in something that wins users, but hey, who knows. The thing that was attractive back then and still is, is the part about "one programmer should be capable to understand the whole stack." But that's only attractive for devs. In the end all the background doesn't matter, only how the layer behaves that users can interact with. On the one hand that's good for Urbit, its history doesn't matter much. One the other it's not as good, since I don't see how Urbit could be a foundation for a service that wins against regular apps or websites. Publishing, reading, shopping, listing to music and watching videos, how can Urbit improve any of that?

yebyen 3y ago
Well I mean, you don't actually need to pay for it, you only need to "make them cost something." (You know, like a JPEG? Nobody really pays for these, do they?) It's just a bit of friction, think of it like I'm giving you an egg. You need to carry the egg around with you and keep it safe, I'm not giving you another one. OK, maybe just one more. (But do try not to break it!) But there are egg-as-a-service managers so you don't really have to carry the egg, just pay a small fee and someone will handle it for you according to the protocol. They are actually giving the managed accounts away now, if you wanted to remove all that cost and hosting friction and see what "superconducting feels like" J/K The point about the identities is that they shouldn't be easily forged. If enough people do have them, if they're actually buying them, they won't have bought just one. They'll have them in bulk, they'll hold surplus, and they'll be careful about who they invite. You'll probably get one at no cost. Unless of course it's really becoming popular, and there is real scarcity. If Urbit is still around long enough for there to be any question of real scarcity, that will have been something else! Just don't expect to purchase another one on any street-corner if you burned yours by sending spam, (then well it's better to have been a productive spam that made you at least back in value as much as the burned ID cost!) Nobody really pays for this now. It's all million dollar art projects, and I think it's like the old days when you just went on IRC and who knows what you'll find! I'm really glad to see you're willing to debate this in spite of having a strong opinion front-loaded, and I'm sure you're right about most people that heard of Urbit so far, ...but I think you'll find that many people will have only heard the good news and intentionally shied away from the controversy. We humans don't like conflict. No need to create it fresh from the bones of our ancestors, I say. Or most people in reality probably haven't heard of Urbit yet at all.