>I had proposed charging a nominal amount for comment account creation, but I got a hard no. Too bad. It certainly would have thwarted the worst offenders, who were creating dozens of accounts a day.
The project comes up on HN quite frequently, and there are many, many issues built into the project.
For a start they redefine a lot of words and concepts to their own meanings, rather than commonly accepted ones, in a way that's reminiscent of cult-y organisations. These then feed into their own obscure programming language. This serves as a barrier to entry and an in-group language.
Secondly, well it was started by Curtis Yarvin, whose (unpalatable) ideas about neo-feudalism are baked in.
But yeah, look up prior HN discussions if you want more info. Urbit is an oddity, and not necessarily a good one.
It seems to me one of the few real projects using blockchain technologies in a sensible way. Honestly not sure why it wouldn't use blockchain technologies. Urbit has been using blockchain tech since before bitcoin or Ethereum existed.
Here is from the original article quoted on the Wikipedia page: "Since 2002, Yarvin had been working on an algorithm — the backbone of Urbit, a product that would restructure how people use the internet. In 2013, he launched the San Francisco-based company Tlon, which oversees Urbit."
Can't really find any info about when they officially "created" this thing, but color me skeptical when someone says they "worked on blockchain" before blockchain was even invented.
I think I was probably just wrong to describe it as a blockchain (sorry about that). It was a different kind of consensus ledger. Here's an article about it:
Glad that Urbit agrees that they don't need a blockchain. Disappointed that they chose to use one. There are real downsides to using one (currently one of those is speed and another is wasted electricity) and no unique benefits.
>By ensuring that nobody will bother using your service? Sure, I guess.
You're begging the question (i.e. whether or not Urbit ID would succeed). Besides, Urbit ID needn't be forced on users, it could be offered side-by-side other options.
>Besides, what you're proposing is essentially the same as "charging for account creation", but with extra steps.
There are several major differences, the most obvious of which is that an Urbit ID user would not have to pay to create an account. This is because the Urbit ID could be tied to many different accounts across the internets. In other words, a person could pay for one Urbit ID, and then be able to comment on many on-line internet journals using that single Urbit ID.
Urbit ID solves this problem, too.