Live data from Hacker News

Bitchat is now on Radicle

radicle.network

81–90 of 155 posts

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#82
post #77

I love these posts, every week it's "Gloop is now on Ploof!"

it's just two recent examples (Gleam on Tangled and now Bitchat on Radicle) and they're both the same format. [Some well-liked but niche tech] switched their code forge to [a decentralized code forge]. Tbh I'm surprised how many on HN seem unfamiliar with Tangled and Radicle (and Bitchat and Gleam).

Here's some less popular posts in the past year that people didn't make Poob jokes about:

* Gemini is now on Mac

* OpenClaw is now on Android

* Instapaper is now on Kobo

* Gitzy is now on Testflight

* Webpack is now on Bluesky

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#85

jack promoted censorship when he was in twitter, now he is playing the saint card.

All social media is censored. If you think yours isnt, you're free to test that hypothesis by posting the N word over and over. I suspect you'll find that you get censored for doing so.

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#87
post #71

Walked around Fusion Festival with Bitchat running. Saw about 20 other devices and a few messages. Nobody replied to my messages. So usage isn't zero, but 20 devices out of 80000 people isn't a lot. Most hops I saw was 2, meaning there wasn't enough density to make it any meaningful distance across the festival grounds.

That's already a lot for such a niche project.

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#88
post #87
post #71

Walked around Fusion Festival with Bitchat running. Saw about 20 other devices and a few messages. Nobody replied to my messages. So usage isn't zero, but 20 devices out of 80000 people isn't a lot. Most hops I saw was 2, meaning there wasn't enough density to make it any meaningful distance across the festival grounds.

That's already a lot for such a niche project.

Many CCCers attend Fusion.

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#89
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluetooth chat apps already exist. I used a really shitty looking (but functional) one called Berkanan that I found by searching the App Store for a Bluetooth chat app to talk to friends on ryan air flights where we weren’t sitting together across Europe last year.

I think FireChat was the first one, in 2011.

I remember when sending messages and files through IR was a standard default feature in (dump) phones two decades ago. It is a bit sad how technology in some ways regresses when certain anti-incentives apply.

Re: Bitchat is now on Radicle

#90
post #67
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well banning it pushed it to Radicle and now people are moving to GitHub alternatives so I think the Streisand effect worked.

Did banning it cause it to get adopted even faster in India than it otherwise would have? That seems like the salient point to me for the Indian government’s calculus. I don’t have a particularly good feel for Indian society but my prior is that this kind of official friction puts a pretty low hard cap on how popular an app can get. If the realistic ambition was only ever to reach a small circle of activists and nerd…

I dont have data for any country, but if anything banning it from github gave it visibility (I personally learnt of it because of that). I don't think that banning it from github hurts its distribution really because I do not expect github to be the channel it gets popularised through as opposed to social media, in which case where the source code is hosted does not really matter. If it gets banned from the app stores, though, it will be a different issue that will definitely hurt.
Post reply on HN