A decade ago it seemed impossible to make a peer-to-peer video streaming service that would work well, many devs having broken their teeth on this problem.
Then Popcorn Time "happened" and showed everyone wrong !
And these days we have even more viable options like Flixxo, PeerTube, and others...
I doubt it ? "Blockchain" refers to a very specific concept, you know ?
Reminds me of discussions about whether hash-based directed acyclic graphs like git are "blockchains"...
Yeah, I was really pissed when Twitter basically killed Flattr 1.0 by removing their API access.
But Flattr managed to bounce back with a much better 2.0 !
"Distributed platform" is a contradiction in terms. Would judges go after the "e-mail platform" (Google because Gmail?) because some of its users have been sharing child porn or terrorist plots?
But I kind of see your point, perception often doesn't care about reality - and I'm reminded how Matrix seems to have a difficulty to fully decentralize, most of its nodes still being linked to the "official" node first? (Or whatever it's called.)
I'm not sure that one can call games like Celeste - that would be wiped out if they were kicked off Steam for some reason - as "independent" (Actually Celeste might survive on consoles - but what if it had never been allowed on Steam in the first place ?). Platforms like Steam are basically the new publishers.
How do we deal with the higher bandwidth protocols like video, audio, and images?
How am I going to handle (or cover) the bandwidth costs if my particular video goes viral?
These were maaybe issues a decade ago, when we had a very similar collective discussion.
(Even then, P2P was already in full bloom and so was XMPP.)
Since then, tons of new protocols/platforms popped up showing that these issues could be solved, for instance : Popcorn Time, PeerTube, Flixxo...
(Most of the USA is likely to always be an Internet backwater, due to the immense distances involved, but if they really wanted they could likely make it better by introducing some competition between their ISPs ?)
And also payment options :
Cryptocurrencies (?), Flattr, Brave, Patreon, various crowdfunding sites...
(Isn't it funny that the governments rejected a global patronage system a decade ago, looking at the current success of Patreon ?)
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by bluetemplar.
Re: Re: Re:
A counter-example :
A decade ago it seemed impossible to make a peer-to-peer video streaming service that would work well, many devs having broken their teeth on this problem.
Then Popcorn Time "happened" and showed everyone wrong !
And these days we have even more viable options like Flixxo, PeerTube, and others...
Re: Re: Re: Once upon a time
Point to big companies like Activision-Blizzard using torrents ? Or would that be counterproductive ? (Are their torrents still distributed openly ?)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I doubt it ? "Blockchain" refers to a very specific concept, you know ?
Reminds me of discussions about whether hash-based directed acyclic graphs like git are "blockchains"...
Re: I don't buy it
Yeah, I was really pissed when Twitter basically killed Flattr 1.0 by removing their API access.
But Flattr managed to bounce back with a much better 2.0 !
Re:
"Distributed platform" is a contradiction in terms. Would judges go after the "e-mail platform" (Google because Gmail?) because some of its users have been sharing child porn or terrorist plots?
But I kind of see your point, perception often doesn't care about reality - and I'm reminded how Matrix seems to have a difficulty to fully decentralize, most of its nodes still being linked to the "official" node first? (Or whatever it's called.)
Re:
I'm not sure that one can call games like Celeste - that would be wiped out if they were kicked off Steam for some reason - as "independent" (Actually Celeste might survive on consoles - but what if it had never been allowed on Steam in the first place ?). Platforms like Steam are basically the new publishers.
Re: Re: Re: Once upon a time
More like Embrace-Extended-Extinguished :
https://salibra.com/p/the-death-of-jabber-8ea395e82f5b
A couple of years ago I gave my contacts the ultimatum that if they wanted to communicate with me, they would have to use open protocols :
no more Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, (& Discord, though I made an exception recently) ;
but instead XMPP, Jitsi Meet, IRC, e-mail, (also SMS & phone calls, Matrix / Mattermost soon).
It has worked out so far...
(untitled comment)
Holy crap, and recently, I have been "spamming" Hacker News with links to your article !
(I've also recently posted in the comments of your summer article.)
Coincidence ? Anyway, I'm glad either way that more people are seriously considering it !
Re: Re: What protocols?
These were maaybe issues a decade ago, when we had a very similar collective discussion.
(Even then, P2P was already in full bloom and so was XMPP.)
Since then, tons of new protocols/platforms popped up showing that these issues could be solved, for instance : Popcorn Time, PeerTube, Flixxo...
(Most of the USA is likely to always be an Internet backwater, due to the immense distances involved, but if they really wanted they could likely make it better by introducing some competition between their ISPs ?)
And also payment options :
Cryptocurrencies (?), Flattr, Brave, Patreon, various crowdfunding sites...
(Isn't it funny that the governments rejected a global patronage system a decade ago, looking at the current success of Patreon ?)
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by bluetemplar.
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