Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 230 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#101

Post by charcircuit »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

Isn't the solution just to use ads to have users fund the site? What were you thinking of?

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#102

Post by lettergram »

8note wrote: post #88

I think it's likely that we will see a rise in customs expectations from countries about data that is imported. The great firewall is the prototype, but as the world becomes multipolar again, regional powers will want to control what kinds of data is imported/exported

While I agree for centralized services. I think In the end all information will be accessible and searchable. Since the beginning of the written word, there’s been an exponential expansion of information. Scrolls, book, news papers, radio, TV, internet, etc.

So in terms of infrastructure, I think a way to tap into and share information regardless of restraint will be the end result. It would need to be cheap, impossible to censor, searchable and able to easily hide access devices / methods. to said system.

I see crypto currencies as the initial stages of this.

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#103

Post by kardos »

charcircuit wrote: post #101
erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

Isn't the solution just to use ads to have users fund the site? What were you thinking of?

That requires running a pile of nonfree/intrusive tracking code, and many people block this kind of thing

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#104

Post by water-your-self »

lettergram wrote: post #102
8note wrote: post #88

I think it's likely that we will see a rise in customs expectations from countries about data that is imported. The great firewall is the prototype, but as the world becomes multipolar again, regional powers will want to control what kinds of data is imported/exported

While I agree for centralized services. I think In the end all information will be accessible and searchable. Since the beginning of the written word, there’s been an exponential expansion of information. Scrolls, book, news papers, radio, TV, internet, etc. So in terms of infrastructure, I think a way to tap into and share information regardless of restraint will be the end result. It would need to be cheap, impossi…

I completely disagree. We see a continuing trend of consolidation and obfuscation. Most social media hides and scatters information intentionally to absorb user time, theres no value in providing information quickly and accessibly. I fear Google becoming worse is also by design as well. Its only time until they introduce their own infinite scroll.

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#105

Post by layer8 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

Sandstorm.io was basically doing that, and it’s the direction I’d want to see as a user. Unfortunately it isn’t attractive to application providers who want to monetize their applications, and without enough applications it’s also not attractive to users. Maybe it needs to be combined with a platform like NextCloud.

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#106

Post by geysersam »

charcircuit wrote: post #101
erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

Isn't the solution just to use ads to have users fund the site? What were you thinking of?

I think s/he wants something that the users hosts together.

Ads can be blocked, reduces the value of your service and do not pay enough to cover infra cost unless you have many users.

In comparison - the resources needed to run a desktop app is 100% provided by the user.

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#107

Post by thorgutierrez »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

One of my big realization of 2021 is that this is exactly what blockchains can provide. You can have permanent hosting of your website on Arweave[1] and interactions with the website could save your state on Ethereum or similar. You pay once to host the website, and then it's free to browse and users pay whenever they want to change the state (e.g. post something on your website). Ethereum is like this big world computer that anyone can publish to and users pay to interact with it. You don't have to worry about hosting or uptime and it will be up there forever.

[1]: https://www.arweave.org

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#108

Post by macrolime »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

There's the SAFE Network that will do exactly that. It's pay on put. You as a developer would have to pay a one time cost to store the app on network, but that should quite cheap. Users would then pay to store their own private data through the (web)app. It uses its own browser and protocol as sites are stored on a peer to peer network.

It's still in somewhat unstable test versions, but I think there's hope it can be out within the next year or so.

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#109

Post by water-your-self »

kardos wrote: post #103
charcircuit wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the solution just to use ads to have users fund the site? What were you thinking of?

That requires running a pile of nonfree/intrusive tracking code, and many people block this kind of thing

How is peertube these days

Re: Ask HN: What are the next internet infra problems?

#110

Post by carlosdp »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

There’s still no good way for me to write an open source web application and have its users bear the cost of running it. This is a major regression from open source desktop software, and IMO is the reason open source web applications haven’t taken off more.

There's actually a lot of open source apps that have this property in a particular category: web3 apps. Users (or other intermediaries, not necessarily the app dev) pay the cost of transactions, and thereby pay the cost of the data storage / computation layer.

HN doesn't seem to like web3 very much yet, but one of the most positive innovations it brings is giving open-source apps a direct business model (instead of the usual "pro" and service org or hosted-version model). There are plenty of open-source apps making hundreds of millions or billions in revenue in this space!

Even utility open-source projects receive significant funding through projects like Gitcoin (https://gitcoin.co/).

Post reply on HN