13 ms·

Tribler founding professor here, AMA. 2x on HN frontpage! Most attention we had during 18 years of coding.

troyvit 2y ago
How well would tribbler work for disseminating content, such as a documentary, that might get a person jailed if they put it out on more mainstream social media?
- synctext 2y ago
  Whistleblowing documentary spreading in Europe or upper Americas might go OK with solid operational measures such as open wifi war driving, etc. China, Russia, etc: nope.
CapitalTntcls 2y ago
Hi, I'm curious about your alternative model for capitalism. How does it aim to change the logic of capital accumulation? Since companies are driven by profit, the entire system revolves around capital growth and competition, which ultimately leads to the emergence of monopolies and billionaires. How does your model address these issues?
- synctext 2y ago
  We simply iterate on Linux and Wikipedia work. The principle we hope will work is to out-compete abusive platforms. Textbooks say capitalism requires realistic future profit and growth. The goal is to show Wall Street that profitability of Big Tech advertisement model is doomed. Forming non-profit collectives we aim to organise alternatives which are superior to existing offerings. So you still end up with a monopoly, just under democratic governance. This is in-line with the thinking at European Commission level, DG Grow [0]. We are trying to invent the tech to form digital collectives which scale beyond millions. Very hard. Plus collective decision making. Then you have self-sovereign citizens owning these collectives, not markets. By design Tribler is self-organising and self-scaling. We have build a DAO using shared Bitcoin capital [1] with one extension using fancy crypto based on FROST [2]. [0] https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=15777 https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=... [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3565383.3566112 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3565383.3566112 [2] https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:f45f85a0-b634-43d9-bd18-2bd9398d2c13/datastream/OBJ/download https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:f45f85a0...
  - azinman2 2y ago
    If advertising model is doomed (so far all the signs suggest otherwise), wouldn’t “big tech” just adjust models? What makes you think they just go away? I’m not sure why technology is the “solution” to an alternative… people seem to just want good content delivered well. Content creators want to make as much money as possible. And that’s for “honest” content… the internet is filled with disinformation and people trying to spread conspiracies, recruit for X, or otherwise mass influence the entire population. How a decentralized Bitcoin based model magically get us amazing content, something people want to use, and minimization of negative forces? Why is technology the key issue?
    - synctext 2y ago
      Indeed, its not about the tech. Changing the business model is key. It might be hard to re-imagine the content industry without the current monopolists. Linux showed how disruptive an open model can be. See here a description + full implementation of a music industry based on Creative Commons content. Artists release their music and receive direct Bitcoin donations from fans. 100% artists, 0% music label, 0% Big Tech, 0% credit card fee. It's a Bitcoin DAO with Spotify-inspired music discovery. [1] https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/files/11814767/First.Deployed.DAO.with.True.Full.Decentralisation.pdf https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/files/11814767/First.Depl...
      - stcredzero 2y ago
        Indeed, its not about the tech. Changing the business model is key. It might be hard to re-imagine the content industry without the current monopolists. Linux showed how disruptive an open model can be. There is a stark difference between the case of Linux and content. In the case of Linux, ROI is measurable in dollars. In the case of content, value is in large part the perception of customers. This is going to be very difficult in the particular use case of news media, which is arguably the most critical area. We're already in a situation there where "value" is in the form of the strengthening of biases and misinformation. The point here, is that to succeed, Tribler might have to find a niche where superior value generation becomes undeniably obvious to some sizable segment. (Perhaps music can serve this function.)
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I want to see your project succeed, and I'm probably not alone. What kind of help do you need?
- synctext 2y ago
  We love to have more help! Hardest part is debugging. So running Tribler and reporting bug in Github. We are in desperate need of Win/Mac/Linux users which will help us with reproduce bugs. One time we found bugs in Python Async IO standard lib [1]. The 'once in a week' bugs are difficult to capture. [1] https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/pull/7926 https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/pull/7926
  - nathan_compton 2y ago
    The reason I don't run TOR exit nodes is that I neither wish to support criminal activity (of at least certain types) nor do I want to get entangled with law enforcement for doing so. Since this is TOR-like, what are my legal liabilities if I am running this software?
    - synctext 2y ago
      Tribler does not include a Tor exit node!
      - wongarsu 2y ago
        But can you download data from regular bittorrent peers using Tribler? And if yes, how does my traffic reach them? Suppose I want to download a torrent that's only seeded by one person running Deluge. My understanding was that this would involve making a connection to another Tribler user, and that user making the connection to that seeder. That would make every client a sort of exit node for bittorrent traffic, even for torrents they don't download. Is that not how it works?
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    From my outsider's view, the part where you need the most help is actually your website. From the https://tribler.org https://tribler.org homepage it's very hard to figure out what tribler actually is, and the only screenshots are hidden away in the support and developer categories, and all feature vastly different menu items (without clear indication how to get those features, if they even still exist). The API documentation isn't linked anywhere. And while installing the client and downloading your first torrent is easy enough, there isn't a lot of info on how to do anything else. And the help that does exist is outdated or wrong. The https://www.tribler.org/howto.html https://www.tribler.org/howto.html seems to be for a completely different version than what I get when I download and install the Windows version, and 3 out of 4 steps don't work as described (The text in 2 is completely wrong/outdated, I don't even have the menu item for 3, nor the icon for 4)
thejohnconway 2y ago
I’m curious about the rewards/tokens aspect. Is this done using cryptocurrency (you mentioned bitcoin, urg, upthread), or something else?
- hanniabu 2y ago
  They smartly aren't answering b/c of how hostile HN is to crypto. Look how receptive these comments have been so far, that's a clear sign of HN's bias.
  - ddtaylor 2y ago
    It's a subject that I am interested in and involved in yet I will never discuss it on Hacker News again. The attempts I made to genuinely interact related to crypto have been terrible on this website. It's unfortunate because I feel there is a very good discussion there regardless on whether you are for or against it but we don't get to see that discussion.
    - synctext 2y ago
      There is no crypto in Tribler. We have something much older then Bitcoin. It's a simple ledger who helped whom in the network. Simple case of earning points by helping others. Economically, its complex. Coin creation is decentralised, everybody prints their own 'money'. The value of that help-currency is based on how connected you are to the globally connected transaction graph. Then we maintain fairness in this micro-economy against freeriders. See study with 160 million trust records and 95k users [1]. [1] https://research.tudelft.nl/files/89353583/1_s2.0_S1389128621001705_main.pdf https://research.tudelft.nl/files/89353583/1_s2.0_S138912862...
      - hanniabu 2y ago
        > We have something much older then Bitcoin Then it's flawed. There's a reason why all earlier implementations failed. They were incomplete.
DRosario 2y ago
Have you checked out Farcaster? https://docs.farcaster.xyz/ https://docs.farcaster.xyz/ FC built a sufficiently decentralized platform, which seems to align with Tribler. They already have apps to compete with twitter/reddit (warpcast), tiktok (drakula), and others. A video service would be a great fit in the ecosystem.
- pyinstallwoes 2y ago
  Any service built on cryptocurrency is a terrible idea for the future; there exists no such thing as scarcity in cyberspace.
  - kouru225 2y ago
    Scarcity is just a natural consequence of trust
    - jolmg 2y ago
      What do you mean?
      - kouru225 2y ago
        Crypto is a solution to establishing trust in a decentralized ledger system: proof of stake and proof of work prevent people from adding fake transactions to the blockchain. It’s just a natural consequence that this creates scarcity.
        pyinstallwoes 2y ago
        It doesn’t establish trust. It’s the opposite of trust. It establishes paranoia, and even then, how can you be sure your screen is the truth?
        persnickety 2y ago
        It establishes both trust by separating it from mistrust (paranoia if you will) by making the division explicit and assigning trust to some people and operations and not others. If you think it's concerned about screens, you're wrong. It's concerned about "did this person really do this"?
zadler 2y ago
Hi I’d like to try plugging into Tribbler as a content backend for beastie.fi, which seems to have similar goals.
ajb 2y ago
Do content creators currently make any income from your platform? If so, what are the statistics of this (best, typical, etc)
jszymborski 2y ago
While I can't say I've really used Tribler a lot, I've been following the project for most of those years. Thanks for working so hard on a such an admirable project.
digdugdirk 2y ago
Could this be run in the browser (via wasm, lets say) as a base layer service to build decentralized versions of twitter/facebook/etc on top of?

How well would tribbler work for disseminating content, such as a documentary, that might get a person jailed if they put it out on more mainstream social media?

synctext 2y ago
Whistleblowing documentary spreading in Europe or upper Americas might go OK with solid operational measures such as open wifi war driving, etc. China, Russia, etc: nope.

CapitalTntcls 2y ago

Hi, I'm curious about your alternative model for capitalism. How does it aim to change the logic of capital accumulation? Since companies are driven by profit, the entire system revolves around capital growth and competition, which ultimately leads to the emergence of monopolies and billionaires. How does your model address these issues?

synctext 2y ago
We simply iterate on Linux and Wikipedia work. The principle we hope will work is to out-compete abusive platforms. Textbooks say capitalism requires realistic future profit and growth. The goal is to show Wall Street that profitability of Big Tech advertisement model is doomed. Forming non-profit collectives we aim to organise alternatives which are superior to existing offerings. So you still end up with a monopoly, just under democratic governance. This is in-line with the thinking at European Commission level, DG Grow [0]. We are trying to invent the tech to form digital collectives which scale beyond millions. Very hard. Plus collective decision making. Then you have self-sovereign citizens owning these collectives, not markets. By design Tribler is self-organising and self-scaling. We have build a DAO using shared Bitcoin capital [1] with one extension using fancy crypto based on FROST [2]. [0] https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=15777 https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=... [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3565383.3566112 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3565383.3566112 [2] https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:f45f85a0-b634-43d9-bd18-2bd9398d2c13/datastream/OBJ/download https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:f45f85a0...
- azinman2 2y ago
  If advertising model is doomed (so far all the signs suggest otherwise), wouldn’t “big tech” just adjust models? What makes you think they just go away? I’m not sure why technology is the “solution” to an alternative… people seem to just want good content delivered well. Content creators want to make as much money as possible. And that’s for “honest” content… the internet is filled with disinformation and people trying to spread conspiracies, recruit for X, or otherwise mass influence the entire population. How a decentralized Bitcoin based model magically get us amazing content, something people want to use, and minimization of negative forces? Why is technology the key issue?
  - synctext 2y ago
    Indeed, its not about the tech. Changing the business model is key. It might be hard to re-imagine the content industry without the current monopolists. Linux showed how disruptive an open model can be. See here a description + full implementation of a music industry based on Creative Commons content. Artists release their music and receive direct Bitcoin donations from fans. 100% artists, 0% music label, 0% Big Tech, 0% credit card fee. It's a Bitcoin DAO with Spotify-inspired music discovery. [1] https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/files/11814767/First.Deployed.DAO.with.True.Full.Decentralisation.pdf https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/files/11814767/First.Depl...
    - stcredzero 2y ago
      Indeed, its not about the tech. Changing the business model is key. It might be hard to re-imagine the content industry without the current monopolists. Linux showed how disruptive an open model can be. There is a stark difference between the case of Linux and content. In the case of Linux, ROI is measurable in dollars. In the case of content, value is in large part the perception of customers. This is going to be very difficult in the particular use case of news media, which is arguably the most critical area. We're already in a situation there where "value" is in the form of the strengthening of biases and misinformation. The point here, is that to succeed, Tribler might have to find a niche where superior value generation becomes undeniably obvious to some sizable segment. (Perhaps music can serve this function.)

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

I want to see your project succeed, and I'm probably not alone. What kind of help do you need?

synctext 2y ago
We love to have more help! Hardest part is debugging. So running Tribler and reporting bug in Github. We are in desperate need of Win/Mac/Linux users which will help us with reproduce bugs. One time we found bugs in Python Async IO standard lib [1]. The 'once in a week' bugs are difficult to capture. [1] https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/pull/7926 https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/pull/7926
- nathan_compton 2y ago
  The reason I don't run TOR exit nodes is that I neither wish to support criminal activity (of at least certain types) nor do I want to get entangled with law enforcement for doing so. Since this is TOR-like, what are my legal liabilities if I am running this software?
  - synctext 2y ago
    Tribler does not include a Tor exit node!
    - wongarsu 2y ago
      But can you download data from regular bittorrent peers using Tribler? And if yes, how does my traffic reach them? Suppose I want to download a torrent that's only seeded by one person running Deluge. My understanding was that this would involve making a connection to another Tribler user, and that user making the connection to that seeder. That would make every client a sort of exit node for bittorrent traffic, even for torrents they don't download. Is that not how it works?
- wongarsu 2y ago
  From my outsider's view, the part where you need the most help is actually your website. From the https://tribler.org https://tribler.org homepage it's very hard to figure out what tribler actually is, and the only screenshots are hidden away in the support and developer categories, and all feature vastly different menu items (without clear indication how to get those features, if they even still exist). The API documentation isn't linked anywhere. And while installing the client and downloading your first torrent is easy enough, there isn't a lot of info on how to do anything else. And the help that does exist is outdated or wrong. The https://www.tribler.org/howto.html https://www.tribler.org/howto.html seems to be for a completely different version than what I get when I download and install the Windows version, and 3 out of 4 steps don't work as described (The text in 2 is completely wrong/outdated, I don't even have the menu item for 3, nor the icon for 4)

thejohnconway 2y ago

I’m curious about the rewards/tokens aspect. Is this done using cryptocurrency (you mentioned bitcoin, urg, upthread), or something else?

hanniabu 2y ago
They smartly aren't answering b/c of how hostile HN is to crypto. Look how receptive these comments have been so far, that's a clear sign of HN's bias.
- ddtaylor 2y ago
  It's a subject that I am interested in and involved in yet I will never discuss it on Hacker News again. The attempts I made to genuinely interact related to crypto have been terrible on this website. It's unfortunate because I feel there is a very good discussion there regardless on whether you are for or against it but we don't get to see that discussion.
  - synctext 2y ago
    There is no crypto in Tribler. We have something much older then Bitcoin. It's a simple ledger who helped whom in the network. Simple case of earning points by helping others. Economically, its complex. Coin creation is decentralised, everybody prints their own 'money'. The value of that help-currency is based on how connected you are to the globally connected transaction graph. Then we maintain fairness in this micro-economy against freeriders. See study with 160 million trust records and 95k users [1]. [1] https://research.tudelft.nl/files/89353583/1_s2.0_S1389128621001705_main.pdf https://research.tudelft.nl/files/89353583/1_s2.0_S138912862...
    - hanniabu 2y ago
      > We have something much older then Bitcoin Then it's flawed. There's a reason why all earlier implementations failed. They were incomplete.

DRosario 2y ago

Have you checked out Farcaster? https://docs.farcaster.xyz/ https://docs.farcaster.xyz/ FC built a sufficiently decentralized platform, which seems to align with Tribler. They already have apps to compete with twitter/reddit (warpcast), tiktok (drakula), and others. A video service would be a great fit in the ecosystem.

pyinstallwoes 2y ago
Any service built on cryptocurrency is a terrible idea for the future; there exists no such thing as scarcity in cyberspace.
- kouru225 2y ago
  Scarcity is just a natural consequence of trust
  - jolmg 2y ago
    What do you mean?
    - kouru225 2y ago
      Crypto is a solution to establishing trust in a decentralized ledger system: proof of stake and proof of work prevent people from adding fake transactions to the blockchain. It’s just a natural consequence that this creates scarcity.
      - pyinstallwoes 2y ago
        It doesn’t establish trust. It’s the opposite of trust. It establishes paranoia, and even then, how can you be sure your screen is the truth?
        persnickety 2y ago
        It establishes both trust by separating it from mistrust (paranoia if you will) by making the division explicit and assigning trust to some people and operations and not others. If you think it's concerned about screens, you're wrong. It's concerned about "did this person really do this"?

zadler 2y ago

Hi I’d like to try plugging into Tribbler as a content backend for beastie.fi, which seems to have similar goals.

ajb 2y ago

Do content creators currently make any income from your platform? If so, what are the statistics of this (best, typical, etc)

jszymborski 2y ago

While I can't say I've really used Tribler a lot, I've been following the project for most of those years. Thanks for working so hard on a such an admirable project.

digdugdirk 2y ago

Could this be run in the browser (via wasm, lets say) as a base layer service to build decentralized versions of twitter/facebook/etc on top of?