[Sargos]

This "open APIs" feeling where you can build and mash up all kinds of services together to build cool things is how writing apps on Ethereum feels right now. All of the data and functions of other people's contracts are on chain and available to you for use in whatever way you want to use it. It's very powerful and makes developing fun again for me.

As an example there is a project called Maker which produces a stablecoin called Dai which is pegged to $1. Another project called Compound took Dai and used it without asking anyone at Maker to create automatic loans where you can put in money and get interest automatically. A third project, Pool Together, started using Compound, again without asking, to pool everyone's funds together for a month and give the interest earned to one winner as a "no-loss lottery". I bet in a few months something will be built on top of Pool Together as well.

None of these teams needed to work together or ask permission. They just built cool things. An added bonus is that these projects can't be turned off by anyone which means Pool Together can trust that their app will work next year just fine, which isn't really something you can rely on in Web 2.0. It's a very exciting time for composability and neat experiments and I'm looking forward to what else will be built.

[ajayyy]

I guess one big difference is who is paying the fee. In an ethereum "app", the code stays dormant until a user interacts with it and pays a transaction fee.

[xu_ituairo]

Yeah, interaction with Ethereum APIs costs a little bit instead of being completely free, but that’s what makes it sustainable, I think.

As a result Ethereum apps/platforms don’t need to be centrally owned or become ad-supported and won’t die when its maintainers vanish. This also serves to stop abuse like spam, which would become too expensive to perpetrate.

Free apps and APIs were a good way to bootstrap wide internet adoption, but I think users might now be comfortable paying fair nominal fees for interactions instead of dealing with free ad-filled, privacy-invading services.

[minton]

Pool Together is sponsored by Maker.