[erikfiala]

Hey, hackers!

I and my friend are working on a side project, that’s similar to reddit in the core but will have different features built on top. It’s focused around creating like-minded communities. Everchat (https://everch.at) will be a place where you can send encrypted text and voice messages, images, videos, files, and more, free from any regulation.

Our mission is to secure, protect, and empower the Internet freedom, and the freedom of speech in general, and our vision is to build the most secure group messaging out there, but the time (and hopefully our future community) will tell.

Right now, you can support us with subscribing to our Product Hunt Ship page (https://producthunt.com/upcoming/everchat) if you have a Product Hunt account, or reserve your user ID directly at Everchat (https://everch.at).

All feedback is welcome, and I’m hoping to open up some Internet freedom- or content regulation-related discussion within the thread. :)

[zzo38computer]

I agree lets the Internet freedom and freedom of speech, although I think that different protocols should be used, and in some cases it does not need to be encrypted because the data is public for everyone. Private messages should be encrypted, though. Instead of a web forum or mailing list, consider NNTP. Instead of Discord or Matrix, consider IRC. For some kind of interactive games, consider Telnet/SSH.

[erikfiala]

Very good point! In fact, the public channels won't be encrypted. Only the private ones, but in a hybrid implementation of server-side fan out and end-to-end encryption. The reason to do this is scalability. With this hybrid approach, we can make encryption work even for channels with a lot of members. It wouldn't be possible to make it work with end-to-end only. What do you think about this? Thank you for the suggestions! We'll definitely look into it :)

[busymom0]

Can you explain (maybe with screenshots) on what you mean by "similar to reddit in the core but will have different features built on top"?

To me, Reddit is more of a forum whereas yours is more of a messaging system if I am understanding correctly?

[erikfiala]

What I think by that is that the core is messages, karma system, creating public communities. The different features on top are stuff like voice messages, file sharing, making polls, creating private communities with encryption that are hugely scalable.

And yes, it's kind of a clash of reddit and Slack if you will.

Feel free to ask more questions :)

[busymom0]

Hmmm, so far it sounds like a kitchen sink with too much going on and yet not enough to differentiate from others to attract users. I would highly recommend reading this:

https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service