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Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

solid.inrupt.com

241–250 of 263 posts

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people be punished for things they say (people can't do things online, unless you re talking about remotely controlling a robotic arm).

Har har har har, right? Voting machines and nuclear reactors get hacked with code - which is just something people say on computers.

neither of these are people "saying" stuff.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#242
post #240

So it's Diaspora meets a CMS? I thinking the issue here will be the chicken and egg problem - how do you bootstrap something like this without a killer app to drive adoption? After a certain critical mass adopts a system like that, all web applications start getting pressured toward supporting it too, but how do you ever build that critical mass to begin with? The whole point of the system is to prevent vendor lock-i…

I'm thinking the incumbents of each field that has a vendor lock-in problem could gather around this common platform and provide an open ecosystem as an alternative to all the monopolies that don't respect their users.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#243

The goals are laudable, and sometimes a backwards-looking implementation can get traction faster than a forward-looking one. But the reliance on Pods and URL location-based identifiers roots it firmly in the past. I think the future is the robust content addressable distributed web. Which could give developers the same flexibility, and users the same friendly experience, but with everything virtualized in a peer to p…

Well, maybe this is a fully-fleshed out vision:

https://qbix.com/blog/2018/08/28/vision-for-a-new-truly-dece...

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#244
post #155

Paging Kenton Varda and the company/product/system he and his team created that does something very similar called Sandstorm: https://sandstorm.io/ . (Kenton also led the protocol buffers team at Google which is their main format for data interchange). I'm curious how this is different.

Hello... you paged? It looks like Solid has progressed since the last time I really looked into it. But, from what I recall, Solid focuses on standardizing data formats and storage... but not compute. That is, all of your personal data is stored in some central location chosen by you, and then web apps can access that data (if you give them permissions). The web apps themselves still run on their own servers, control…

If I may, I’ve been bankrolling a project for about 7 years along these lines, and I remember being very impressed with Sandstorm. Our approach was a bit more “Wordpressy”:

See the video on qbix.com and qbix.com/platform

We just wanted to focus on developing a general-purpose “operating system” for social networking, so startups and any communities can build their social networks by just installing the system, getting plugins and throwing reusable components on pages (like chatrooms, collaborative documents, group rides, etc.)

That way we can get real user and community adoption and then gradually decentralize things like so:

https://qbix.com/blog/2018/08/28/vision-for-a-new-truly-dece...

To date we have about 5-6 million users download our apps, and around $1M in revenues that we can reinvest into this thing. I would love to speak more to you by email if it makes sense... please look at the above links and let me know your thoughts.

I really believe that the project that will really make this take off will have to work backwards from user adoption (by doing for social networks what Wordpress did for blogging) and then incrementally move towards the decentralized architecture where everyone owns only what they are entitled to. The key is to avoid painting yourself into a corner, so that you can decentralize your own software later without losing features. But until now we focused on actual killer use cases, like this:

https://youtu.be/Z7Q7IzVv1VU

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#246
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to the day where getting on the internet is like opening a bank account, complete with KYC verification. I will love standing in line at my local DMV and waiting for my WebID profile to be approved.

LOL, no. I want to be able to have internet access anytime anywhere without identity checks, verification, or even anyone knowing exactly who I am. What is legal speech today is heretical "call the death squad" speech tomorrow.

Exactly. Anonymity is a feature, not a bug. Certain unpopular opinions can’t be said if the one posting now has to worry about the repercussions in the real world. A despotic government or just some malicious people are now able to punish you for simply having a different view point, which is NOT my version of an ideal internet.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#248
post #87

After reading what little documentation is available and installing a single-user solid server myself, I wonder if this is how people felt when the World Wide Web was first invented. I find myself asking: Okay, now what? Except I think even the World Wide Web, when it was first invented, at least had a demo that worked. Solid doesn't even seem to work. Following instructions for "learn[ing] how to install and run you…

That’s exactly how the Web was at first. I clearly remember downloading Mosaic in the summer of 1993, a few months after its release. I clicked around for a few minutes, but quickly ran out of content. So I went back to gopherspace, which was rich and endless in comparison.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#249

I hat websites like this: after reading for 3 minutes I learned that Solid is revolutionary, game changing and whatnot, but I have aboslutely no idea what it is. Very frustrating experience.

This early 2010s sitcom clip [1] comes to mind when reading about this. Many of the same buzzwords were used, in the same way. Notice the lack of substance in the product discussion, and the literal dancing around what it (Jabberwocky) was.

Who needs a product, when you have a presentation.

[1] https://youtu.be/spyJ5yxTfas

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#250
post #155

Paging Kenton Varda and the company/product/system he and his team created that does something very similar called Sandstorm: https://sandstorm.io/ . (Kenton also led the protocol buffers team at Google which is their main format for data interchange). I'm curious how this is different.

Hello... you paged? It looks like Solid has progressed since the last time I really looked into it. But, from what I recall, Solid focuses on standardizing data formats and storage... but not compute. That is, all of your personal data is stored in some central location chosen by you, and then web apps can access that data (if you give them permissions). The web apps themselves still run on their own servers, control…

Reading this comment, I'm saddened again that Sandstorm failed, and that you had to abandon it to work on something that, while technically interesting, doesn't advance end-user freedom as Sandstorm tried to.

And I'm ashamed that I didn't do more to get behind Sandstorm sooner. I suppose this is too little, too late, but I just signed up for the Oasis power-user plan. I suppose if a few thousand of us did that, then you and a handful of other people could work on Sandstorm full-time again.

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