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Comment by evbogue

2 days ago

Secure-Scuttlebot (the gossiped social network) died circa 2019 or 2024 depending who we ask. It died before it's time for various reasons including:

1. competing visions for how the entire system should work

2. dependence on early/experimental npm libraries

3. devs breaking existing features due to "innovation"

4. a lot of interpersonal drama because it was not just open source but also a social network

the ideas are really good, someone should make the project again and run with it

I tried it twice and the onboarding experience was insurmountable. Never managed to achieve a critical mass of followers or whatever they call it, so things were permanently read-only for me. I'd reply but nobody saw it.

It was a fascinating protocol underneath, but the social follow structure seemed to select strongly for folks who already had a following or something.

So much drama there too, but it's designed to attract drmas

  • Drama has killed the technological progress in open source, if you ask me.

    Having seen what goes on in the foss world and what goes on in the large faang-size corporate world, no wonder the corporate world is light-years ahead.

    • It is a fundamental constraint of consensus based organizations. You need hierarchy to move faster but that has other disadvantages.

      4 replies →