Add page for decentralized social networks #6020
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I suggest adding a new page to the use-cases section that covers decentralized social networks built on Ethereum. I think it'll be a great addition since it goes beyond the usual use-cases Ethereum is known for, i.e., DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs.
emmanuel-awosika
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Hey @emmanuel-awosika, thanks so much for this 😍 Sorry busy prepping for Devconnect but will try to get this looked at over the next week. |
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Hey @emmanuel-awosika, thank you again for the PR on this 💪
It is a great start! Left some initial comments to get this closer, a lot of them are open questions.
| | Decentralized social media | Traditional social media | | ||
| | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ||
| | Information is stored on the blockchain. | Information is stored in servers and data centers. | | ||
| | Global distribution of nodes reduces the possibility of outages. | Highly susceptible to network failure and service downtimes. | |
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"Highly susceptible to network failure and service downtimes."
I've got a strong aversion to this statement. 'Highly' susceptible seems like we're exaggerating a problem to make our point. Big social media infrastructure is fantastic.
Network failure? Who's network? If your internet goes down you aren't getting onto social media regardless of whether it is decentralized or not.
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What I had in mind here was to compare the underlying infrastructure and how it affects operations. Specifically, I was thinking of the Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp outage that happened last year.
Of course, these outages don't happen very often, but the possibility is higher, since they have less distributed servers. It'll take something like the world's Internet going down or some black swan event to crash Ethereum, so by extension, platforms built on it can benefit from fault-tolerance.
Thought I'll share my thought process around the point.
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Your reasoning makes sense to me but can we drop the hyperbole 😬?
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Yes, that makes sense. Like I said in another comment, I'll simply focus on highlighting the pros (w/o hyperbole) of decentralized social media without directly pitting them against traditional SM platforms.
| | Decentralized social media | Traditional social media | | ||
| | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ||
| | Information is stored on the blockchain. | Information is stored in servers and data centers. | | ||
| | Global distribution of nodes reduces the possibility of outages. | Highly susceptible to network failure and service downtimes. | |
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"Global distribution of nodes reduces the possibility of outages."
Trad social media will also have global distribution of servers which also 'reduce the possibility of outages'. This point feels a bit weak. Arguing 100% uptime vs 99.999% uptime is not something that will resonate with users IMO.
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Sure, they'll definitely have a global distribution of servers. But I think the main difference here is that a blockchain like Ethereum likely has even more servers (i.e., nodes) sustaining the network. Plus, people are incentivized to run these mini-servers--so you can at least bet that some nodes will always be online.
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But I think the main difference here is that a blockchain like Ethereum likely has even more servers (i.e., nodes) sustaining the network.
But we're not going to be storing the majority of data on Ethereum. Livepeer is a good example of this. I'd bet Livepeer nodes are definitely fewer in number than YouTube servers. Not strongly opposed to keeping it, but I do think the point itself ignores the reality of the current situation.
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Alright, that's a fair point. Would it be okay to replace the comparison with a line like "As dapps running on Ethereum network, which is sustained by a global, peer-to-peer network of nodes, decentralized social networks are less susceptible to downtime and outages."?
I'm taking a cue from the benefits of dapps listed on the Ethereum.org site:
"Once the dapp is live on Ethereum, it will only go down if Ethereum itself goes down. Networks of Ethereum's size are notoriously difficult to attack."
| | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ||
| | Information is stored on the blockchain. | Information is stored in servers and data centers. | | ||
| | Global distribution of nodes reduces the possibility of outages. | Highly susceptible to network failure and service downtimes. | | ||
| | Users can enjoy privacy in communication. | Users are forced to exchange privacy for free access. | |
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These points seem unrelated?
Privacy in communication as in E2E encryption in private messages? I'd argue this isn't part of decentralized social media...
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I was thinking along the lines of decentralized identity here. You properly have to share personally identifiable information (PII) like names, email addresses, residential addresses, etc., if you need to use a regular social media app. Since dApps allow people to use wallets as sign-in methods, they likely have higher privacy standards.
And yeah, I know E2E is gaining ground, but if the code is never open-source, there's really no way people know if their messages are truly private. I mean, LinkedIn pops up a "Set up meeting" notification when "meeting" is mentioned in my messages. Which sort of gives the notion that messages are still being read (even if it's AI).
Edit: Also wanted to add that most SM companies will make money by collecting and selling user data to advertisers (which is why I said "exchange privacy for free access"). Perhaps we can say "users can enjoy privacy of information vs users exchange privacy for free access" instead?
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Perhaps we can say "users can enjoy privacy of information vs users exchange privacy for free access" instead?
I think the current phrasing is ok (maybe a little combative?). Perhaps we could soften it a little? e.g. 'Users often have to exchange privacy for free access'
My main problem was it appears to be comparing apples and oranges on the pros vs cons.
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Yeah, I figured out these use-cases don't need a direct comparison against legacy systems. I reworked the decentralized identity article (which had a similar structure), took out the pros vs cons table, and replaced with a smaller "Benefits" section. Perhaps I can rework the content for decentralized social networks the same way.
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FWIW I think attempting to compare is helpful. Not a strong take but I'd leave in the comparisons.
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So, are we sticking the benefits listing style for this page?
Co-authored-by: Joshua <[email protected]>
Slight edits to reflect feedback.
Edits to incorporate feedback
| - [Status](https://status.im/) | ||
| - [Mirror](https://mirror.xyz/) |
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Could we add a short description of what these are? They aren't very appealing for users to click right through as they are.
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Just added the descriptions.
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Pushed a few commits re: formatting. Going to give it a quick skim after it builds but I think this is ready to ship to the world 🎉 |
Added descriptions for "Use social media" section.
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@emmanuel-awosika Thanks for another great PR! I left a handful of small code suggestions that shouldn't be too controversial.
Couple other thoughts here.. commented about how it would be nice to add a note about disintermediation, aka, removing the middle man, and connecting people directly... really important point that I think we should touch on directly (perhaps as a summary point?)
Also, was curious your take on how DeSoc would fit into all of this. Should this page be DeSoc more broadly?
And, Lens protocol was another thing I feel like would be worth mentioning here. They're building out primitives for decentralized social networking with the plan for anyone to be able to build front ends for these primitives.
...I don't think these two ideas need to be blockers, but just want to consider them.
Lastly, house cleaning... we need to link out to this. Basic places would be same as my comments on the DID PR, we could add to Use Ethereum menu in nav and footer, and add to the shared "use case" menu dropdown.
(And if we do build in DeSoc in some way, perhaps a redirect for /desoc/)
| 1. Decentralized social media platforms are censorship-resistant and open to everyone. This means users cannot be banned, deplatformed, or restricted arbitrarily. | ||
| 2. Decentralized social networks are built on open-source ideals and make source code for applications available for public inspection. By eliminating the implementation of opaque algorithms common in traditional social media, blockchain-based social networks can align the interests of users and platform creators. | ||
| 3. As dapps running on the Ethereum network, which is sustained by a global, peer-to-peer network of nodes, decentralized social networks are less susceptible to server downtime and outages. | ||
| 4. Decentralized social platforms offer an improved monetization framework for content creators via non-fungible tokens (NFTs) NFTs, in-app crypto payments, and more. |
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More importantly it eliminates the "middle-man." Content creators have direct ownership over their content, and they engage directly with followers/fans/buyers/etc, with nothing but a smart contract in between.
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Added this point to the section.
| ## Further reading {#Further-reading} | ||
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| - [Social Networks Are the Next Big Decentralization Opportunity](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/01/22/social-networks-are-the-next-big-decentralization-opportunity/) by Ben Goertzel | ||
| - [Web3 holds the promise of decentralized, community-powered social networks](https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/26/web3-holds-the-promise-of-decentralized-community-powered-social-networks/) by Sumit Ghosh | ||
| - [An Overview of the Blockchain Social Media Landscape](https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/blockchain-social-media-decentralized-social-media) by Gemini Cryptopedia | ||
| - [How Blockchain Can Solve Social Media Privacy](https://www.investopedia.com/news/ethereum-blockchain-social-media-privacy-problem-linkedin-indorse/) by Prableen Bajpai |
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Similar to DID page, if we're going to use the use-case template, we could consider adding a bit more here in the same format as the other use case pages. Similar to my comment on that PR, don't think it needs to be a blocker.
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@minimalsm The relative path for the image here isn't working because this file is in the /content folder directly instead of nested in a folder as /title/index.md. We just need to rename/move the file to /content/decentralized-social-networks/index.md.
Co-authored-by: Paul Wackerow <[email protected]>
Added resources to "Further reading" section and new information about subreddits using Community Points (ERC-20 tokens) to reward users.
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FYI I've changed the file structure and changed the slug to |
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Awesome work once again @emmanuel-awosika ❤️
- Made a few changes requested from feedback by Mirror team
- Added it to nav/use cases pages
Merging 🙏🎉
Glad I could help. Thank you for providing useful feedback on earlier drafts, too. |
I suggest adding a new page to the use-cases section that covers decentralized social networks built on Ethereum. I think it'll be a great addition since it goes beyond the usual use-cases Ethereum is known for, i.e., DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs.
Description
The article provides an introduction to Ethereum-based social networks, including how they work and why they matter. I included a comparison of decentralized social media networks and traditional social sites to highlight their differences. Finally, the guide reviews popular social media applications like Peepeth and Mirror running on the Ethereum blockchain.
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