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Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

musing.io

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Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#11

Post by shubox »

olah_1 wrote: post #8
franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Would you rather earn upvotes that are worthless outside of a single app? That's a genuine question. It's not about valuable vs worthless. Both are valuable. "Cryptocurrency" just allows you to transfer or exchange that value.

yes. the value is in the blockchain and being able to store data (content) on a database that anyone can access. This way the data is owned by the content creators (and public), not the platform.

If reddit or any other content-based platform goes down today, all of that data is lost which is very valuable. If Musing goes down, the content is forever stored on the blockchain and any other application can come and build on that data. That is the value-add. In addition, no API restrictions or paid API services to restrict applications to build on musing data.

The tokens distributed per post are determined/validated by the community (through upvotes), thereby incentivizing good content. Tokens also may be used for governance (voting), which would further decentralize the platform. Essentially, the people that participate the most in the platform (through providing valuable content), have the most say (through voting power) in future decisions. This is the value-add in decentralization, along with many other benefits of holding tokens

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#12

Post by singularjon »

franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Hey, founder here. Obviously, I feel that utilizing blockchains/decentralization in the case of Q&A/knowledge makes sense. Knowledge is the most valuable asset on the internet. Why wouldn't we want users to have ownership over that? By allowing users to easily post content to a blockchain, they are also able to monetize off of it because they own it. Quora pretty much doesn't pay any users at all even when their content brings in millions of views. So I feel that a need exists for decentralized knowledge and the ownership of it.

Where Bitcoin decentralizes digital currency, we are decentralizing digital knowledge.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#13

Post by olah_1 »

shubox wrote: post #11
olah_1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather earn upvotes that are worthless outside of a single app? That's a genuine question. It's not about valuable vs worthless. Both are valuable. "Cryptocurrency" just allows you to transfer or exchange that value.

yes. the value is in the blockchain and being able to store data (content) on a database that anyone can access. This way the data is owned by the content creators (and public), not the platform. If reddit or any other content-based platform goes down today, all of that data is lost which is very valuable. If Musing goes down, the content is forever stored on the blockchain and any other application can come and buil…

Another use case is if you want to create a new account, you could transfer your old tokens to the new account.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#14

Post by hanniabu »

franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

It's an incentive. I always hear people here complaining about free labor, not getting compensated for open source projects, incentive structures for free products are failed from the start, etc. But when solutions come up there's a knee jerk gag reflex when they see the term cryptocurrency. And when discussions ensue, the arguments against cryptocurrencies are either baseless or have been proven false. Yet these tropes continue because of the lack of understanding. I'd expect this on traditional forums but really upsetting to see this head-in-the-sand attitude from a technical community.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#15

Post by bajsejohannes »

shubox wrote: post #11
olah_1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather earn upvotes that are worthless outside of a single app? That's a genuine question. It's not about valuable vs worthless. Both are valuable. "Cryptocurrency" just allows you to transfer or exchange that value.

yes. the value is in the blockchain and being able to store data (content) on a database that anyone can access. This way the data is owned by the content creators (and public), not the platform. If reddit or any other content-based platform goes down today, all of that data is lost which is very valuable. If Musing goes down, the content is forever stored on the blockchain and any other application can come and buil…

That could also be solved by licensing. Stack overflow, for example, uses CC BY-SA 4.0 for all posts, and provides data dumps for anyone who might want them.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#17

Post by NicoJuicy »

singularjon wrote: post #6
simmanian wrote: post #4

I'd be interested to see exactly how they use their blockchain as the backend. They have a link to github but nothing is public. The performance seems great right now but will it stay that way?

Hey, founder/dev here! We will be fully open-source very soon. Our blockchain is forked from another which is open-source. The blockchain is a model in which there are nodes that are elected/voted in by the community. They are responsible for the validation/consensus of blocks getting produced. Whenever you post a question, an answer, or an upvote, the request goes straight from the browser to the blockchain, and you…

Wouldn't it be simpler to just store everything on your own and let events ( eg. In DDD applications) just write to the blockchain?

Instead of threathing the blockchain as source of truth?

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#18

Post by desertedisland »

franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Not trying to be aggressive but I'm guessing that you use an adblocker to browse the internet?

I'm guessing that you believe content on the internet should be universally free (and contributors unpaid). Quick aside: even if you don't believe creators should be paid for their work, how do you propose that server / infrastructure costs are covered?

It's a philosophy I (sort of) understand but surely it's up to the creator if they want to be compensated for their work or not?

If that's the case then the current options are:

1. Advertising, marketing and user tracking / profiling which I'm sure you're a big fan of. 2. Some sort of subscription service

Or 3: contributors are compensated with micro-payments / tokens - e.g. what these guys are doing.

How has Facebook become one of the biggest (and malignant) companies in the world without paying a cent for the content that we (and content creators) supply (content without which Facebook would be nothing)? How is that right? What if there were a (let's call it "decentralised") system where all of us were rewarded for the content we produce and not just the mega corporations? It could be a system... sort of like this :-O.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#19

Post by shubox »

bajsejohannes wrote: post #15
shubox wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. the value is in the blockchain and being able to store data (content) on a database that anyone can access. This way the data is owned by the content creators (and public), not the platform. If reddit or any other content-based platform goes down today, all of that data is lost which is very valuable. If Musing goes down, the content is forever stored on the blockchain and any other application can come and buil…

That could also be solved by licensing. Stack overflow, for example, uses CC BY-SA 4.0 for all posts, and provides data dumps for anyone who might want them.

Yes, fair point but there are limitations.

1. That license comes from a centralized authority. This can (and will change) in the future. Licensing 50 years ago is radically different from today and licensing 50 years in the future will be radically different from today.

2. The fact that there is a license means there are some terms of service / restrictions -- otherwise why even have a license?

3. I'm not sure how the often the data dumps would occur but if they are not as real-time as possible that creates a flaw area (data can be changed). What happens if stackoverflow, goes back and changes/modifies some user data from 2 years ago Sure, when we reconcile old data dumps with new data dumps there will be a discrepancy, but who will be doing these checks all the time? Blockhain has nodes which secure the system so all data matches.

Why use something that comes with barriers when there is a better solution -- true decentralization.

And apart from data access, there is power in holding a part of the project itself -- the tokens that provide governance. You can be a day1 stackoverflow user and post every single day since then and yet have no say in the direction or decisions of its future. Why not truly decentralize the system and let the participants in the network also decide the direction of the product (including the original team as well).

Finally, there is a lot of transparency when it comes to using blockchain (contrary to popular belief). If the founder decides to move his tokens -- everyone can see it in real-time as all token movement is transparent on the blockchain, along with other benefits.

Overall, blockchain and decentralization brings more transparency, efficiency (but not always), and fairness.

The last 100 years has been an insane bull market for the middle man. From grocery stores (middleman between producer of food to consumer of foods), to Uber (middle man between driver and passenger), to Youtube (middleman on video content), to even storing money (banks). And they take a massive cut for providing that service, despite most of the value coming from the participants. Prior to this, everything was direct -- people went directly to the farmer, or driver, or held gold on their own. I believe we will head back in this direction, where the the "middleman" will become a decentralized entity and the "cut" will be passed right back to the participants.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#20

Post by ALittleLight »

desertedisland wrote: post #18
franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Not trying to be aggressive but I'm guessing that you use an adblocker to browse the internet? I'm guessing that you believe content on the internet should be universally free (and contributors unpaid). Quick aside: even if you don't believe creators should be paid for their work, how do you propose that server / infrastructure costs are covered? It's a philosophy I (sort of) understand but surely it's up to the crea…

People will create content for free. Places like wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo Answers, whatever prove that. Some people like to get upvotes or likes, others just like to take a topic and expound on it a bit and see how people react. Some people probably have other motivations.

Adding money to it commercializes things. Changes incentive. People start working to earn money rather than for the joy of contributing. Partly this is good - some of my favorite YouTubers work full time at creating the content I like. Partly this is not good - lots of content on YouTube for example is kind of cookie cutter attention getting spam type stuff.

Google itself is another example. Before, and in the early days of Google ads Google results were amazing. Nowadays Google seems to mostly return ads, top X lists, spam, and such.

Imagine reddit where the goal was to earn upvotes. That would look a lot like spamming low effort memes. Maximum possible return for effort. If your upvotes are money, I think that's what you'll tend to get.

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