We will definitely experiment with Swarm once it's out and see how well it fits with our needs. This document covers some of the differences between swarm & IPFS for those interested: https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM
For the MVP we will gift a bit of ETH to each user that installs AKASHA and creates a profile. We are talking about enough ETH to enable an average user to publish, comment and vote for a few good days. The "perfect" amount will most likely be determined after observing how real users interact with the application during the alpha. If along the way the user will generate content or comments that will in turn generate upvotes he will refill/increase his ETH balance.
It's important to note that users will be able to read entries and comments without needing any ETH so access to information is free in this regard. ETH is required only when you want to interact with the dapp living on the Ethereum network.
In any case, from my rough calculations, the costs involved in publishing an entry with 1 tag would be recovered after receiving 1 upvote. All the upvotes beyond that point would be profits going to the author.
We are also open to experimenting with things that might enable us to take over some of the interaction costs at the smart contract architecture level, but that is outside the scope of the MVP.
As for the business model we don't like ads in general so we want to experiment as much as possible on this side as well to see if we can co-create a sustainable social media network model that does not rely on ads to survive.
We don't know yet if that model means a custom token, a micro-fees scheme or something completely different that we can't even imagine at this point so we chose focus first on building the dapp and learn from the actual usage what direction we should take.
For the MVP we will gift a bit of ETH to each user that installs AKASHA and creates a profile. We are talking about enough ETH to enable an average user to publish, comment and vote for a few good days. The "perfect" amount will most likely be determined after observing how real users interact with the application during the alpha. If along the way the user will generate content or comments that will in turn generate upvotes he will refill/increase his ETH balance.
It's important to note that users will be able to read entries and comments without needing any ETH so access to information is free in this regard. ETH is required only when you want to interact with the dapp living on the Ethereum network.
In any case, from my rough calculations, the costs involved in publishing an entry with 1 tag would be recovered after receiving 1 upvote. All the upvotes beyond that point would be profits going to the author.
We are also open to experimenting with things that might enable us to take over some of the interaction costs at the smart contract architecture level, but that is outside the scope of the MVP.
As for the business model we don't like ads in general so we want to experiment as much as possible on this side as well to see if we can co-create a sustainable social media network model that does not rely on ads to survive.
We don't know yet if that model means a custom token, a micro-fees scheme or something completely different that we can't even imagine at this point so we chose focus first on building the dapp and learn from the actual usage what direction we should take.