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This isn't great for Layer. I think most companies want to own their chat stack. Its not complex enough, like say Stripe, to need a 3rd party. Has anyone used L

This isn't great for Layer. I think most companies want to own their chat stack. Its not complex enough, like say Stripe, to need a 3rd party. Has anyone used Layer and felt they added value?

Animats 11y ago
They used Google's database service and Pusher, so only in a limited sense do they "own their chat stack". Are there any true peer to peer chat apps left, or do they all go through some server now, even after call setup?
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I really doubt it. Remember when you could just send someone a file, because their IM client allowed you to connect to each other directly? I wonder if there's a good way to do this now, as some plug in somewhere... Even XMPP's file forwarding functionality fails for me.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Broadband and wireless routers kinda killed this. It's now typical for every computer on your home network to be behind a NAT, so to enable direct connect, you need to manually punch a hole in your router's firewall. The spyware situation of the early 2000s (which caused Microsoft to bundle a personal firewall with WinXP) didn't help either. Most users are not willing to fiddle with their network connection just so someone on the Internet can directly connect to them.
    - nostalgiac 11y ago
      Hardly killed it. There's a reason UPnP exists.
    - lastofus 11y ago
      WebRTC allows for a peer-to-peer data channel and does the heavy lifting of NAT punch through for you. I've mostly been messing with the video chat side of things recently, but would be curious to see if the data channel could be used for large file transfers.
- EvanPlaice 11y ago
  "Are there any true peer to peer chat apps left" Bittorrent recently released 'Bleep' which supports encrypted peer-to-peer chat including image transfer. It holds the message locally until a direct connection to the receiver is established.

This isn't great for Layer. I think most companies want to own their chat stack. Its not complex enough, like say Stripe, to need a 3rd party. Has anyone used Layer and felt they added value?

Animats 11y ago

They used Google's database service and Pusher, so only in a limited sense do they "own their chat stack". Are there any true peer to peer chat apps left, or do they all go through some server now, even after call setup?

StavrosK 11y ago
I really doubt it. Remember when you could just send someone a file, because their IM client allowed you to connect to each other directly? I wonder if there's a good way to do this now, as some plug in somewhere... Even XMPP's file forwarding functionality fails for me.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Broadband and wireless routers kinda killed this. It's now typical for every computer on your home network to be behind a NAT, so to enable direct connect, you need to manually punch a hole in your router's firewall. The spyware situation of the early 2000s (which caused Microsoft to bundle a personal firewall with WinXP) didn't help either. Most users are not willing to fiddle with their network connection just so someone on the Internet can directly connect to them.
  - nostalgiac 11y ago
    Hardly killed it. There's a reason UPnP exists.
  - lastofus 11y ago
    WebRTC allows for a peer-to-peer data channel and does the heavy lifting of NAT punch through for you. I've mostly been messing with the video chat side of things recently, but would be curious to see if the data channel could be used for large file transfers.
EvanPlaice 11y ago
"Are there any true peer to peer chat apps left" Bittorrent recently released 'Bleep' which supports encrypted peer-to-peer chat including image transfer. It holds the message locally until a direct connection to the receiver is established.