Those of you who have seen me post over the years know that I am passionate about this topic. I wind up linking to my own project to provide more info but let me know if that's bad form on HN.
In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things. I wanted to build a platform like Wordpress that communities could host and then install social apps the same way they install wordpress plugins.
The developer model would be pretty cool, too: no gatekeepers to kick you out of the app store or revoke your API keys while they compete with you. Instead, you sell your apps to entire communities. Over time we built apps like:
Group rides (uber for friends)
Group activities
Group chat
Collaborative docs
Marketplace
Pitching in for a gift
As time went on, I realized that eventually communities will have their own mesh networks and we would have built the social software they would need to run on them! Right now, they don't really have software uilt to run on the local networks, they still need to connect to centralized services on the global internet.
We asked some guys to build router firmware for us, so that we can have local software run on the wifi networks of cruise ships, classrooms etc. It is great for taking attendance for example, as phones automatically connect to the wifi and the cookie does the attendance bit.
You can literally have a superfast social network for a university or company or whatever, and signals go over the internet only when they have to.
Now we went one step further and made a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc to allow communities to issue and democratically manage their own local currency! (https://intercoin.org)
IPFS and SAFE a great fit for an even further future where no elites control anything. But that's a little further on.
I'll provide my two cents, in the case of group activities. It seems awfully convenient to have a single site (e.g., meetup) for, say, if I'm traveling to a new city and looking for something to do.
It'd seem like an unnecessary barrier to entry to have to find the locally hosted instance of every particular problem, every ___location I go.
Knowing I can use Yelp or Groupon etc to find local restaurants or deals anywhere is actually pretty helpful.
To get to the core of your premise:
> I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things.
You might think there is no reason for this; but users of these services aren't concerned with this problem. If your selling point is "Hey, don't you hate how this one big corporation has a monopoly on <marketplace> <group activities> etc?", you're going to hear crickets. This isn't a customer problem.
Our customers are the directors of organizations and on average communities pay us tens of thousands of $ each to put an app for their members in the store.
For example a university realizes that if they give an app to their students while they are still actively studying there, as alumni they will be part of a social network across the country where they can get job and business opportunities, date or just meet someone for an activity. They are more likely to donate and participate when the university posts their own events.
As for the users - you're right. A user doesn't necessarily want to have one app for each community. That's why the process should be seamless.
Ideally, an app should be usable across many communities. So think for example of Meetup.com as an app on our platform. It would be on the app store and you'd automatically see meetups across all the communities where you are a member.
In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things. I wanted to build a platform like Wordpress that communities could host and then install social apps the same way they install wordpress plugins.
The developer model would be pretty cool, too: no gatekeepers to kick you out of the app store or revoke your API keys while they compete with you. Instead, you sell your apps to entire communities. Over time we built apps like:
As time went on, I realized that eventually communities will have their own mesh networks and we would have built the social software they would need to run on them! Right now, they don't really have software uilt to run on the local networks, they still need to connect to centralized services on the global internet.We asked some guys to build router firmware for us, so that we can have local software run on the wifi networks of cruise ships, classrooms etc. It is great for taking attendance for example, as phones automatically connect to the wifi and the cookie does the attendance bit.
You can literally have a superfast social network for a university or company or whatever, and signals go over the internet only when they have to.
If you want more in depth info I give a talk about it here: https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY
And we blogged about the details here: https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/centralization-and-o...
Now we went one step further and made a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc to allow communities to issue and democratically manage their own local currency! (https://intercoin.org)
IPFS and SAFE a great fit for an even further future where no elites control anything. But that's a little further on.
Here is what I would like to see eventually replace the Web: https://github.com/Qbix/architecture/wiki/Internet-2.0