I’ve sparsely been using scuttlebutt for the past few months and I quite like it! On paper. I like the network a lot, but all the pubs (that is, public servers) I went to were populated almost exclusively by devs and programmers of all sorts. Nothing against them, far from it, it’s just that because I know next to nothing about coding, most of the conversations go over my head. Maybe it’s just bad luck on my part, I don’t know.
That said, I wish the project all the best and will continue to support them. The world needs a good alternative to popular social networks, which range from dodgy to outright malevolent.
populated almost exclusively by devs and programmers
I guess this is mostly due to scuttlebutt still being a cool new tech you would mostly hear about in programmer circles. It’s still not mature enough for your regular facebook people to adopt too. I mean the internals are still running on javascript, which makes it much slower than it could be.
From my own experience with the ssb mainnet there are at least some non-programmer folks, perhaps you just didn’t get a chance to sync with them yet?
I guess this is mostly due to scuttlebutt still being a cool new tech you would mostly hear about in programmer circles. It’s still not mature enough for your regular facebook people to adopt too.
Yeah, I figured that was the case going in. That’s my experience with most nascent projects. I just really, really liked the project and wanted to give it a shot and I’m not sorry I did. But yes, I feel it’s still a ways away before non-tech savvy people start joining.
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Is there a way to use the same account on multiple devices? I can remember it was a problem some time ago.
Near as I can tell that’s not possible with the current implementation. It’s probably doable with a custom client, though you’d then have to solve your own synchronization problem.
IMO, this is the biggest hurdle to being able to comfortably talk about this as a serious option for my less tech-savvy friends. The idea that an app -wouldn’t- automatically sync between their desktop, phone, tablet, laptop, etc, etc, would be laughable to them.
I think they’ve been researching ways to implement that, fingers crossed.
To be fair, a lot of my friend’s only use their phones at this point, and I wonder how many of the younger generation is similar so it might not be as big an issue for them
Even if someone were to only use their phone, synchronization becomes important when they upgrade their device. Even if it’s as simple as backing up a folder to a dropbox analogue, that really should be handled by client software if the desire is widespread use.
If this were to get popular, I suppose someone might set up a web version with a cloud backend, but that’s trading quite a bit of privacy for convenience.
The thing I find most interesting about the scuttleverse is just how different the discussions there are from most other places online. The immutability of whatever you put on the network means that people tend to always triple check the stuff they send. Due to the nature of the tech there is also less focus on instant responses, which I personally like very much since I can take as much time as I like to respond and no one will judge me for it:)
I think the idea is awesome and it works quite well - apart from the need for pubs. I think the fediverse is awesome for simplicity and ease of use while scuttlebutt is awesome for its ability to function without having an internet connection.
In the future I’d like to see a service that does both, i.e. a mastodon server on a raspberry pi that I could use in a location that doesn’t have internet access all the time, it would cache likes, boosts and such and send them out when I have a connection or a traveling device comes by.
As I understand it pubs are only necessary if you don’t have users on the same local network. Which right now means they’re -very- necessary, but with once critical mass is acheived pubs would shift from the only place to see other users to gathering points for specific groups of like-minded users.
I downloaded Manyverse from fdroid and have yet to open it up and make an account, but honestly think it’s a cool concept, and to me is a pretty good way to be private from the general population (and companies!)
Manyverse is pretty neat. Not as many features as mastodon or anything, but pretty cool.
Oh nifty, I haven’t seen Manyverse before gonna try it out now. :)
Oh thoughts?
I gotta play with it a bit more, but my initial impression is pretty good. The UI is pretty clean and simple, but I’ll have a better idea of how well it works after playing with it with some friends for a bit.
pretty good way to be private from the general population (and companies!)
On some level that is true, sure. But it’s important to keep in mind that usually, unless you’re sending private encrypted messages, everything you post is public. It’s an append-only log which also gets replicated onto many machines, possibly including strangers who could take it and post it online for everyone to see (or, once scuttlebutt gets large enough for this sort of behavior to become profitable, scrape for user data).
This is interesting, and I really like the idea of the gossip protocol.
As a shiny-new user, I’m finding it difficult to find conversations to get involved in. I grabbed a pub invite, and there’s no way that I immediately see to look over -all- public posts to see where the activity is, it appears I have to blindly pick specific channels and hope there’s something there. There is an active channel list, but on the pub I hit, that entire list is currently populated with porn.
Is there some way to link an account between devices? That seems to be a missing functionality that I would think important for wider use; if you can’t use it on both your desktop and your phone interchangeably, that would be a huge minus.
there’s no way that I immediately see to look over -all- public posts to see where the activity is
entire list is currently populated with porn
That sucks :( But it can also be used to illustrate an important point about the sort of essence of scuttlebutt, which is being pull-first. You must be “pulled-in” to join social circles. This means it’s harder to get into any given circle, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Once you have established a presence on the network (meaning you have at least a few people follow you and replicate your feed) and are not reliant on public pubs, chances of getting unwanted porn are really quite low. It’s a great example of what I would call grassroots moderation, where the task of blocking unwanted actors and content is spread out across all users in a way.
If you want people to replicate your feed you may want to introduce yourself on
channel, at least that’s where the introductions happen on the mainnet.Is there some way to link an account between devices
As far as I’m aware there is no good way to do this. What people often do is they will make another feed (“account”) on their phone and ask their friends to follow that one as well.
Thanks for the feedback; I created a post on #new-people and we’ll see how that goes.
I suppose I could also look for more pubs, right now I only snagged an invite from one of the public ones.
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