This may have use in defining standards. You could have a standards authority without any actual standards body. Free but standard.

In the case of self-hosted Apps (ie. where you need to "install" something on your phone or computer), each peer provides their own compute/storage/networking to host their own usage of the App, plus a small fragment of everyone else's usage (proportional to a few average user's worth).

So, the cost to each user is a small constant C times the average user's utilization. And the benefit is that the application persists, in its entirety, as long as any number of users >= 1 continue to use the App.

I feel like the tools available for this purpose would need to be more powerful than existing IDE systems in order for it to be adopted on a wide scale.

Is it possible to design such a system without a blockchain?

For next-gen "DeFi" systems like Holochain -- the incremental cost of executing functionality is vanishingly small, and can be distributed across a DHT substrate hosted by all users of the App.

A self hosted Holochain "DeFi" app costs a small constant factor C times the average agent's memory / network / storage cost, to each client.

In other words, you gain the benefit of the "DeFi" version of App for yourself, by investing a small C x your own cost to run the App for yourself, alone.

If you don’t mind, could you give an example for a programmer who isn’t building finance or crypto related applications? I think that would help me understand what we’re talking about.

The clutter.social App is a decentralized Twitter-like app implemented on Holochain. This one is hosted on https://holo.host (only in public Beta, so it doesn't scale automatically), but illustrates a full-complexity app that is deployed. You can compose this (eg. re-skin it, or build it into another app as a commenting back-end), without having to copy the implementation or host the data.

You can also "clone" such an app (with or without any functional changes) and host that fork yourself (eg. on a company’s or family's computers), and nobody can stop you.

If the App has no revenue model to pay for hosting, perhaps don't use it (embed it) within your app? That would be a risk.

If you "fork" it, then you're responsible to host it -- if it isn't hosted by each client App installation already. The "forked" version of the App hosts its own DHT, so its data is completely distinct from the original.

So, yes: there are decisions to be made, but they revolve around long-term viability of the encapsulated/forked App -- not the fundamental possibility of doing so.

But, isn't that ... interesting? That something like this could be built and deployed and -- theoretically scale globally?

Just think of what could be done with a bit of planning and a (tiny) revenue model?

Sure. It is interesting that someone can build a web app, host it on temporary machines, and then one day scale it into a major business model.

That's not new to blockchain. That's how the internet works at a fundamental level. What specifically drives blockchain to be useful or novel or interesting in this model? How is this application better for being on chain?

If a certain fraction of those users decided to install it (instead of use it via the Web interface), this scaling would be "free" -- paid for by the eg. 10% who installed it.

I've been doing this professionally for 40 years, 30 of which I've spend searching for solutions to specific problems in this domain. I was there in '09 and downloaded Satoshi's reference implementation, and again in '15 for Ethereum; that's "blockchain"; what you call "being on chain". They didn't solve the problems I was trying to find solutions for (scalable consistency in occasionally connected systems).

This is new.

You've just show at least one way how it would be stopped. Who exactly is going to pay for static assets delivered to 1B users via Cloudflare?

> but the App itself would scale.

Of course it wouldn't. None of the blockchains have the required throughput. Yes, they want you to believe they have it, but they don't.

> that's "blockchain"; what you call "being on chain". They didn't solve the problems

> This is new.

So they didn't solve the problems, but somehow this "app by a newbie" is suddenly solving all these problems and "scales to 1B users" because blockchain?

Oh. And it doesn't scale because you can't even link to a post on it because "someone needs to pay for hosting". So it couldn't scale beyond a single user?

> ... one way it can be stopped.

Yes, this newbie developer made some decisions that couldn't scale to 1B users. Alternatively, each node can serve static assets, thus scaling linearly w/o CDNs. This isn't required for most apps, as they aren't targets for state-level actors seeking to deplatform them from CDNs. But, if a totally free client self-hosted app is desired, this is possible.

> ... None of the blockchains have the required throughput.

Obviously. That's why "this is new." Blockchains enforcing global consensus on a "total order" of unrelated events cannot: the laws of physics forbid it, besides it being wasteful and unnecessary. Holochain does not enforce such unnecessary "total order" consensus; it is not necessary, as it turns out, for maintaining state consistency in distributed systems. That is the breakthrough. This is a low-research "Bro" comment.

> ... can't even link to ... it because "someone needs to pay for hosting"

Ya, I was just being considerate. It's a newbie's app, hosted by a few people.

The point is, there is something new going on here; something that some hackers on HN might be interested in. I know the 2018 "Me" would have been interested!

If you're not, that's fine - carry on! However, no more low-research "Bro" comments, okay? ... Ah, I see that you are rabidly anti-Crypto, and that's fine: fill your boots! But, for those visitors who are interested in amazing things, don't be discouraged! There are indeed new things happening here that are worth investigating.

I really want to see the peer reviewed research published in respectable science publications.

Otherwise this stuff is a dime a dozen like battery breakthroughs.

This is the kind of thing that gets that person Nobel prizes and Turing awards.

Odds are 99.999999% that whoever's against this thing is right and it's just vaporware or dead ends somewhere months of years down the line.

In any case, go have fun meanwhile, any lesson is good, including about what NOT to do :-)

So what exactly is new, and how can it scale?

Note: for a newbie Glitch and Itch are infinitely more scalable, and more innovative.

Scales without bound is cool, but generally lacks use and is expensive. I would rather scale to my actual usage bounds rather than paying for infinite scalability.

Composed without restriction is cool, but I got that with the MIT and BSD licenses. Forked and restricted has already been possible using traditional open-source computer infrastructure.

So, at risk of stating the obvious:

- Avoid risk of accidental/malicious deplatforming

- Personal control of all data, avoiding incompetence/malfeasance presenting faulty data

- Deploying enhanced presentation of existing functionality and data cannot be restricted

- Reuse of existing functionality in private environments can’t be prevented

- Guarantee that results based on trees of publicly committed data are themselves valid, without personally traversing the tree and recomputing results

- …

As I write this, I’m struggling to comprehend how these benefits aren’t obvious.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been searching for solutions to these problems since the early 90’s for distributed industrial control and monitoring. But seriously, I’m certain lots of developers run into these constraints and are seeking solutions.

Most people find it pretty easy to avoid getting kicked off social media, and even if they do, it doesn't affect them.

Likewise, "personal control of data" is meaningless. It's not like you can prevent people from taking the data and doing things with it.

I struggle to think of any actual use cases for your last three points that don't boil down to FUD.

Blockchain is neat, but it has no real use outside of extracting money from other people involuntarily.

So, doesn't that astonishing fact deny pretty much every claim in your post?

Crazies (the least perjorative term I could think of) that have the power to eject an App used by hundreds of millions of people, from those people's own platform, are dangerous -- to our liberty.

And, when people are starving, and are forced to use only their oppressive regime's worthless money: these issues put citizens' lives at risk.

So, yes: these are things people care about. Many just don't yet realize they could be the victims of these dangerous bullies forcing these sub-standard tools on them.

It's just an app. Companies rise and fall, it's how it works. We lived just fine before it, we will be just fine after.

Something will replace Twitter just like something replaced Friendster and MySpace.

Presently, there is a high risk of loss of income (see: every small individual Russian or Iranian software developer. Their families are now suffering because their income has been shut off, even though this is a textbook example of "Group Punishment" under the Geneva Convention. If I had decided to send some of my company's income to the Canadian "Freedom Convoy", my family's income would also have also been summarily cut off, without trial or conviction in a court of law).

So, like it or not: there are innocent individual who, due to no fault of their own, cannot use "TradFi" -- "DeFi" is their only alternative to achieve an income to care for their families.

Using a trivial Ethereum Smart Contract, a single-use Ethereum wallet address is generated for a set of payees (eg. the software author(s) and any number of other license fee recipients) designated to receive a proportion of an Ethereum fee payment. When the payment is received at the designated address -- the software License is generated, and any one of the payees can trigger the "smart contract" executing distribution of the fees to each of the payees' accounts, without being able to change the proportional distribution.

None of this is possible under "TradFi". All of it (except for the automatic generation of the License) is possible under Ethereum "DeFi". The entire application (including automatic, atomic generation of the License and distribution of fees) is possible under Holochain.

In all honesty -- whenever I hear "Crypto is a solution in search of a problem", I really have trouble not rolling my eyes. Perhaps that's not nice. But seriously; if you're here on HN, I have higher expectations of you. If you're enraged by this; perhaps there may be other forums more appropriate for you?

:)

It doesn't matter if blockchain allows you to break the law. You are still breaking the law and punishments exists outside of the chain.

Blockchain enthusiasts get confused between "a solution" and a "better solution". A car with an airplane propeller engine is technically a solution that solves a use case of getting a person from point a to point b, but is it the best solution when compared to current cars? Right now the crypto industry is slapping all sorts of stuff on and then just because their car makes it down the street, suddenly they think somebody in africa who never had a car before will want it.

The use case you describe has been beaten over and over in crypto over the past 5-7 years. DRM. Its old news. But no major company wants anything to do with it. Its a social problem not a technical one.

Blockchain is an engineers wet dream. Infinite solutions that make theoretical sense and the math works, but lack any way to solve the current problems better.

In fact, the entire Open Source (and most Closed Source) stacks depend on this fact, including the stacks underlying the entire US Government's (and its Military's) operations. Which functions on large amounts of software (free and paid) from Russian individual developers.

So, any demand by them (or any other government) that you personally cannot pay Yegor the Russian for his little Python package is morally, logically, legally and practically ridiculous.

And "DeFi" absolutely does solve this problem.

The fact that "all the baaaad people" can also use "DeFi" is immaterial. Just like you, too, can buy and use a windowless white van.

Well i mean thats your opinion not the facts. There is a whole web of regulations when dealing with those countries and if they are allowed to buy from you.

There are even more laws around money movement and debt and financing.

Just declaring "it shouldnt be that way. it is unfair" doesn't change the laws.

..and some of us can't help but roll our eyes when we hear yet another crypto use case being skirting government laws / regulations.

Smug-o, not all of us here were born yesterday.

This is actually the wrong audience as the concentration of people who have been around the block a while is higher than for the average internet community.

You'd think that in the past 14 years anyone would come up with a well-researched eloquent push back to the multitude of actually well researched eloquent questions that have been frequently asked of crypto enthusiasts.

However, all we get back is utter drivel, cultlike devotion, and "just join the discords".

The time of of eloquent questions has long passed. There is now a 0.999999999999999999999999 probabilty of anything crypto-related to be a scam, a solution in search of a problem, or a solution that ignores or is oblivious of the real world.

It's on crypto enthuiasts to prove that their latest scam du-jour isn't a scam, and is an actual solution.

Sure, its very expensive presently under the Ethereum version of "DeFi". Just like the original motorcar was expensive and fragile, and would break your arm occasionally while you crank-started it.

Now, if the cost basis of each "DeFi" transaction is reduced by 5 orders of magnitude (see: Ethereum vs. Holochain) -- what are the potential outcomes of that?

The problem is the language you're using sounds like bullshit.

Even "DeFi" systems may not be permissionless, though. It's just that the permissions are visible constraints (ie. in the code) -- not just randos deciding to deplatform you because, you know, "reasons".

This is an emerging risk to eg. Ethereum. Now, most "Staking" validators are "OFAC compliant". Does this mean that eventually the Ethereum blockchain will orphan any wallet that contains any Eth that went through the Tornado Cash mixer?

What if you decided to compose the Tornado Cash mixer into your payment app, to maintain some anonymity in the face of a repressive regime say throwing gay people off roof tops? Would you consider a permissionless system bad, in that case? Because, OFAC decrees that you are currently a criminal (and guilty without charge or trial) if you do so. What if they decide, next week, that whatever you do presently use is now verboten?

So, these concepts aren't "bullshit"; they are a present, serious concern to free peoples around the globe.

I didn't say that what you were talking about was bullshit. I said the language you used made it sound like it.

Those "reasons" are called market forces and law.

Law is, you know, written, it's very complex (people are complex), but not some hidden thing.

Market forces are more abstract but they're the thing making human systems work.