It's pretty nice to see that there are now several P2P techs.
This one seems pretty good, but unless you have a single client and unless the protocol is defined to do a single thing and do it well, I can't see it thrive.
For example bittorrent is a good tech because it only does one thing and users can understand it. Same for IPFS. Softwares like limewire or kazaa thrived because they were simple enough to use. Same goes for protocols.
In my view, decentralization requires:
* a client that runs on user's hardware
* a p2p database and filesystem, with this kind of append-only log and verification, that runs on the client
* server can still accelerate access access time
Generally with this kind of system, the goal is that each user can publish data/content either in a public/private manner, without being dependent on servers.
The only problem is being able to attract users and compete with popular platforms. If such a protocol+software can attract users who want a "privacy-aware" alternative to platforms like facebook, I could see it work.
Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more money invested to build such platforms, because the p2p internet seems to be the only viable solution to fight privacy issues.
Yes and no. The tech is like the “Internet” and is largely born from academic work and continues forward as fundamental and foundational p2p networking advancements. It’s not a consumer product itself but obviously builders have and will fill that void. Beaker is the best example but eventually more and some projects you may have heard about are actually using some aspects of hypercore.
This one seems pretty good, but unless you have a single client and unless the protocol is defined to do a single thing and do it well, I can't see it thrive.
For example bittorrent is a good tech because it only does one thing and users can understand it. Same for IPFS. Softwares like limewire or kazaa thrived because they were simple enough to use. Same goes for protocols.
In my view, decentralization requires:
* a client that runs on user's hardware
* a p2p database and filesystem, with this kind of append-only log and verification, that runs on the client
* server can still accelerate access access time
Generally with this kind of system, the goal is that each user can publish data/content either in a public/private manner, without being dependent on servers.
The only problem is being able to attract users and compete with popular platforms. If such a protocol+software can attract users who want a "privacy-aware" alternative to platforms like facebook, I could see it work.
Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more money invested to build such platforms, because the p2p internet seems to be the only viable solution to fight privacy issues.