The death of steepshot... And why we need decentralized apps!
The death of steepshot.
A lot of people use this app, including me. I think its an amazing app with good ideas behind it. But unfortunately it is now completely defunct. It brought huge potential as an instagram like alternate. I feel this is an extremely import topic we need to have a discussion about. There was a MSP waves podcast with @crimsonclad discussing what we would do with our crypto when we die, following the supposed death of the quadriga CEO. Sounds morbid right? But thats the hard honest truth. What about DApps? What happens if the DApp owner(s) administrators decides to bail or suddenly disappear, what happens to the DApps and the users? What about @dsound or @partiko?
Nothing is displayed on the app except a single post from 4 days ago. They are powering down and transferring steem to another account (@korzunav). There was nothing posted about steepshot shutting down, and the sketchy transfer to an account I have never heard.
Nothing is displayed on https://alpha.steepshot.io/ empty and devoid of life.
View full image The view from @steepshot, sending to korzunav.
It definitely seems that they plan on not coming back. Although the source code is open source and available to anyone who wants to setup a server and operate it.
View full image An overview of transactions to @korzunav in the past 4 months.
After doing some further research, the account seems to be related to steepshot. Though not a lot of posts, so no real information can be discerned from just an overview.
The solution?
Why not IPFS, why not more people developing? There needs to be a core working group of developers dedicated to keeping every open source DApp alive and active. And have a small percentage of the fees go to maintaining an active development. Some sort of election system if the developers aren't doing what the users want and neglecting the DApps.
Public transparency is a bitch to those who are the most corrupt.
Final thoughts
A post started out of a gripe with steepshot shutdown. To end my rant, I encourage readers to do research into the DApps you use, get involved in their politics, if you are a developer look at/modify the code. The community should be involved in the open source DApps and have the ability to host/provide content to other users. That is the only way for a platform to withstand the long passage of time through the ups and down. Its not about the money or rewards, its about the ability for users to use
IPFS and getting more people in the network now is key. Each node that turns on, helps the network as a whole really. That's why IPFS is so powerful.
I don't think IPFS is the solution. It's expensive, unreliable, and overkill when the majority of people's photos don't need to be decentralized (and the majority of users don't care). If someone wants to solve this problem, they should focus on building a great team that is capable of launching, maintaining, and scaling software that adds unique value. Any effort that fails to do this, regardless of whether it's centralized or decentralized, will (and should) go away.
I am surprised you think that. Considering busy.org uses IPFS for images to my knowledge. IPFS is a lot more efficient than traditional system, especially when talking about gateway/local node caching. A lot less usage on main servers. There is a few issues with IPFS regarding resource usage, this is fixed with changing settings. If a dapp had end users storing files/images, it wouldnt matter what the devs are doing to keep up the platform because the structure is made of community nodes.
IPFS and social media make a great match together. Not sure where you got the the idea that ipfs or p2p is expencive. I'd like to remind you of the 2000s, and the things that happened back then . Having photos on ipfs is ideal as they take much less time to load ( when a local node caches the file).
https://torrentfreak.com/peer-to-peer-traffic-statistics/
My final point and this isn't an attack, I appreciate a lot of vision steemit Inc holds.. If Steemit Inc's (centralized cloud system ) was so great , why does steemit, Amazon, etc have high downtime when compared to p2p? http://deadline.com/2018/10/youtube-down-outage-youtube-tv-youtube-music-1202484389
When we have 50 nodes , p2p uptime is 100% and can be held up to this high, unmatched standard for many years . I've tried to reach steemit.com already ,so far ( and it's a tiny site) for many hours and it failed to load. Why is this? Oh.. they used aws.. a centralized.. very expensive service. Vs having a system similar to the one described by torrent freak in 2005 2006.
IPFS is newer than torrents. Even so, it's still highly reliable... If you think ipfs is unreliable. It's possible that you tried to leech unseeded files. Try files that have many pins ( or seeds ). Like the videos hosted with oneloveipfs.com. Anyone can deploy ipfs anywhere. In any garage. Similar to how Bitcoin started. People can truly earn/mine through the transfer of value in content. Like videos. Yes. It will work, already does work. And has worked for decades in different environments. BBS systems and people like Jack Rickard made sure of that. These systems won't go away they will continue to gain development. Take a moment to listen to the innovator vint Cerf and his thoughts about the future internet and p2p.
And If you really want to go deep into Internet technology's history, Here is how it ALL started.
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!popcorn
Thank you popcorn bot. Ned didn't keep you down for long <3.
sad to hear that
Shame. I used Steepshot almost weekly. If they aren't doing anything with the code I am sure I could gather enough donations from myself and friends I know to get it back up and going.
Yes brother, servers are pretty inexpensive and I can look into modifying steepshot to use IPFS. Have some community servers host things too.
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That would be amazing. @zappl also is another solid project that seems to be on the ropes also.
Please do a post and tell us what you need. Can you also have a look at whats happened to Zapple too and also Musimg seemsnto have taken their bat and ball home.
I know you are run these brilliant delegation contests but could you please use your rep to perhaps create a community group to run these great DApps ? I dont have the knowledge bit would love to be involved.
Best wishes
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It would be good to get it up and running again @theycallmedan. I was kind of shocked that they just abandoned it and actually made a post about it a while back.
I think they were gunning for a delegation from Steemit Inc. but got discouraged when they didn't receive one. I also suspect they got discouraged with the low price of Steem and I heard their app deleted from the Google Play Store for NSFW content.
This isn't related to Steepshot but is it possible that you can write some code that will allow me to upload to Dtube.Network directly from YouTube as opposed to having to upload a second time on Dtube (after uploading on YouTube)? @vaultec
I believe in the long-term growth of Dtube.Network but as it stands, YouTube currently attracts more viewers. It's also where my wife's friends and followers spend a lot of their time.
It would be great if you could get some synergy going with @algo.coder and @share2steem so that I could post to Dtube.Network as easily as I post to @steemit from Instagram (via @share2steem). If you could create a feature like this, I believe a lot of people will import their YouTube videos to Dtube.Network.
YouTube Doesn't use IPFS. And that's the future of communication, (Video wise)
I understand that, but I'd still prefer to upload on YouTube and have it automatically imported to Dtube.Network.
I believe I am not alone in that. IPFS might be the FUTURE, but in the PRESENT moment, and probably for a year (or so or more), content producers in general will prefer to upload to YouTube and automatically import to Dtube.Network as opposed to uploading on both or only uploading on Dtube.Network.
If Dtube.Network wants to attract content producers on a massive scale, this idea could potentially make it happen. People could essentially import all of their YouTube videos to Dtube.Network.
NOTE: Combined with @emaferice, we have filmed well over 1,000 videos in the last 10 years and successfully monetized most of them on YouTube + got views. I'd be interested in importing some of our videos and followers to Dtube.Network.
That's something that can be solved. But hosting 1000 videos isn't cheap. It either takes dedication of time or money or both. The idea around DTube is self hosting or community hosting as I'd like to call it. Maybe you would put thousands of hours of content on YouTube. YouTube has deep pockets to pay for cloud hosting. IPFS, while much more efficent. Still requires nodes to pin your file. Where does dtube get it's money? My point here is every single user needs to be encouraged to provide IPFS nodes asap. As their content wont sustain on it's own with out the entire community working together, helping each other host each other's content.
Okay. @gray00
My wife will be getting a Desktop computer soon so I might be able to provide a node. I am also open to buying other hardware that is cheaper in terms of electricity used to provide a node.
I just don't know the requirements or what to do. It would even be good if you let people import their YouTube videos and required them to host it or took a larger cut from their rewards (50% - 75%). Then people could choose the best option for them.
I hope you will make it easy for us to import videos from YouTube. I will use Dtube.Network either way but I will use it right away if I can import videos.
I don't maintain Dtube.network. I work with techcoderx to keep uploader.oneloved.tube online. We may have something like that in the future depending on the needs of creators (but we offer paid only plans).
Yeah, I remember @graylan.. and I am planning on buying a plan with OneLoveDtube to backup our videos.
I will wait for the price of Steem to move back to over $1.00 before I do that though, since all of my extra funds are going to buying more Steem right now.
On another note, my wife and I just got a Fiber Ineternet connection in our home and it only takes 6 to 10 minutes to upload a video now. So it looks like I won't need the YouTube Import feature after all.
how complicated the ipfs nod is? how much up speed is required (my adsl is really low in upspeeds and when upspeed is at full down speed is almost nonexistent) if you know could you share some kind of tutorial on it. thanks
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It's not that complicated, similar to installing any other program with some small modifications. I will be working on a an app that makes it easy. Internet usage is not very much, just enough to download files and maintain P2P connections. I can definitely make or provide you a tutorial.
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would love to learn more, if you know or will write about, how, why to use it and all other interesting stuff please share.
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I will definitely take that into consideration :)
Yeah... something fishy is going on. Sad.. it was my favorite dapp, huge potential.
This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
How does IPFS work? Can you give me a brief summary? And how hard is it to maintain Steepshot up and running? I might have a guy that would love to put SteepShot up and running, need to see if he wants to... he is already running a witness node and has some spare equipment in his home so it probably wouldn't be too much of a hassle
IPFS is a P2P file sharing system. A lot like bittorrent, however bittorrent is extremely outdated compared to IPFS. It is designed for hypermedia content such as images, videos and more. Dtube network uses IPFS for example, which allows any node to store/share videos without being directly part of servers hosting the majority of the content. Basically allowing any person to store/provider all of the content on a particular dapp. SteepShot from what I have of its source, uses some sort of API to interact with steem through Steepshot's server you would need to figure out and completely gut that replace with IPFS/Raw steem API.
Is there an incentive to keep a IPFS node up? Do I earn crypto or any other sort of thing? Hmmm, SteepShot is a little more complicated than I originally thought... Going to search around to see how it goes...
There is currently no system for earning crypto, if you run a node you get your own benefits such as content that you look at through the node gets cached and provided to other nodes making the system fast for popular files reducing a single point of failure. I am working on an experimental system where you can earn crypto for hosting dtube videos or other content.
That system would be awesome, and I would probably try to run a node at home, I have a really really fast network, could I run the node from a normal computer or would it require a server or any kind of special equipment? Kinda new at all this, but it would be an awesome project!
When the system is up and running I'll be the first one to give it a try :)
Yes
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There isn't any special equipment. You can even run it on a phone 😂
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Since it is peer to peer wouldn't a faster computer and internet make the node run faster too?
When the system is up and running I'll be the first one to give it a try :)
Really interesting post @vaultec, I guess it should be a cautionary tale. For non programmers, it's difficult to know how much a dapp is posting on chain and how much is kept offchain, such that if the dapp was to fail, how much data/content would be lost.
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Indeed, we need developers/people who are most vigilant to keep track of what dapps are doing in the background.
Indeed. In some ways dapps can turn all the expense we go through to be decentralised, into a worthless commodity by creating a single point of weakness and therefore centralisation
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This is unfortunate as I believed it had potential but it also demonstrates the importance of having a sustainable model when developing and deploying Dapps in the ecosystem. We can no longer depend on delegations alone and need to be actively engaging and earning according to the demand of the project for growth.
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