[rolleiflex]

This is what I’m working on with Aether (https://getaether.net). A mass-communication method owned by no one, like email is owned by no one. It’s a modern, decentralised Usenet.

I used to call it ‘email for mass communication’ but it confused people, since it’s not based on email, so I stopped calling it that. That’s the goal though.

I also gave a talk on it at the Internet Archive last week, if you want a quick intro in video from. https://archive.org/details/12120iadweb (My part starts at 1:13:30). If you have any questions, happy to answer.

[skyfaller]

"In Aether, spam prevention is accomplished by requiring proofs of work".

Now, I recognize that regular e-mail uses proof of work as a spam prevention measure these days, so I don't want to be too harsh on a decentralized alternative.

That said, I've watched the energy expenditures of Bitcoin etc. with alarm, and I've become very concerned about the sustainability of anything using proof of work if it should become popular. Fundamentally proof of work makes people waste energy in order to accomplish tasks such as sending messages, at a time where we need to use as little energy as possible to reduce emissions.

Have you considered sustainability at all with Aether? Have you considered any alternatives to proof of work for dealing with spam?

[drdeca]

I suspect that the PoW energy costs of things like this would be negligible compared to that for cryptocurrencies, but I haven’t justified my guess.

[rolleiflex]

You’re correct. Besides, proof of work in Aether is user adjustable, everyone can choose their own threshold. No need to turn it up unless you see spam. As you turn it up it becomes harder for other computers to pass your filters, which will cut down on spam (or anyone who’s trying to create too many posts for any reason).

[dchyrdvh]

While reading this, an idea popped up in my head about monetization. Sending a message needs spending a PoW token that can be mined or bought. The price is set by the recipient and can be different for different senders. Zero for friends, a high number for potential spammers. The author, however, has a private key that can produce PoW tokens cheaply, but still in a limited amount to retain trust and prevent diluting everyone's share to nothing. Some companies may want to send spam and will be happy to buy PoW tokens. Users that suddenly start getting spam, raise the bar, as it costs them nothing. Those companies now need more tokens and they come to you. This is inflation. As long as SEC understands what's going on, it shouldn't have problems with this sandbox economics.

[rolleiflex]

I thought about monetisation and it’s also in the talk linked but ultimately I’ve decided to not monetise it. Instead, to make it sustainable, I’ve created a separate app called Aether Pro at https://aether.app. It’s a much better version of Google Groups. You would use it if you wanted the modern features of Slack like channels, guests and integrations, but you also want to keep email discussions as your main work tool, and not move to chat.

By having them separate, I can make sure that the the P2P version isn’t influenced by money-making concerns, since we have a product explicitly made for that.

[ssivark]

I presume it should also be possible to reduce the threshold for my contacts/friends... so that strangers emailing me for the first time need proofs, but frequent contacts don’t.

[rolleiflex]

That is a great idea, but that’s not in there yet. I took note of it.

[013a]

Which is higher: the energy cost of bitcoin mining, or the energy cost of the spam industry?

[miohtama]

Spam is tradegy of commons, because spammers get infinite free messages. Make message gateways or users themselves to pay the cost, similar to SMS delivery, and the problem is greatly reduced. The cost of low quality marketing becomes unbearable to the spammers, as generally nobody buys their shit.

It does not need to be proof-of-work payment, or even a cryptocurrency payment. Gateways can have peering agreement with each other paid in dollar.

[gojomo]

Thanks for your presentation at that meetup! It's definitely one of the most radically-decentralized & technically-principled projects, so it was good to see it alongside other presenters there, like Matrix (definitely headed in the right direction) & Planetary (built on similarly-principled Secure Scuttlebutt).

[rolleiflex]

Totally, always a pleasure to talk at the Archive — not only just because of the like-minded people but also because I get to keep these recordings and pass around, and that's super useful in quickly explaining what it is.

[Krasnol]

I try to find out where the front and backend config files are for quite some time now. They are mentioned in the guide, on your forums, they are not in the program folder or in the app data folder and googling it proved to be quite useless as the name is not unique enough...

[rolleiflex]

If you go to Preferences in the app, it will tell you where exactly your specific config files are. You can then copy and paste that path to access the files. Make sure you edit only after app is fully closed, or it will write over your changes from the copy in memory on exit and your changes will be reverted.

[Krasnol]

Yeah sorry I got it, just forgot to edit the comment. However...man this program is using 3! folders on windows. Is this really necessary?

[imvetri]

Can you share tech design diagram?