This evening over a glass of sangria I felt like writing about a project I started on that I envisioned 5 years ago when I first was introduced to Interplanetary File System [IPFS].

Over 5 years ago I created a roadmap for my dream distributed social media and it's underlying infrastructure.

Click here for the roadmap hosted on GitLab.

Years later BlueSky comes out and it was my dream fully realized. My ambition was a YouTube like experience but with my own flair. They released AT proto and I asked myself why am I not building this?

My idea was broken into three distinct layers/products.

Infrastructure

Substratum

What's below;

  • Login, now with Authenticated Protocol [At Proto]

  • Data storage

    • Ownership/permissions

  • A drive like experience across devices, cloud etc

  • Fault tolerant if the cloud service is down peer to peer nodes can remain operational.

Stratum

Whats above;

  • Distributed compute allowing trusted peer to peer pools to run an application.

  • Allowing flexible hosting that if the network all contributed there is little to no cost to end users or organizations so they can focus on the craft not monetization.

  • Fault tolerant if the network/organization is down small nodes can still run keeping content and access available

The application proof of concept

I wanted to prove this theory with a social media for the people by the people governed by the community while still allowing enforcement of government laws which are created by the people (U.S.A ...U.S.A...U.S.A, I know, I know it's not just the United States but I love the idea that the people own it and govern it).

Community Stream

A YouTube experience that is built off AT Proto and the Bluesky network that has a more video and shorts look and feel. Maybe with a Snapchat stories flare. Partnering with other socials with sovereignty in mind.

The goal was to envision a general social media that would run on the Substratum and Stratum networks allowing users to own the content, followers, and run the platform for absolute fault tolerance. So if the internet backbone is damaged the protocols themselves keep the application operational. Showing my ultimate dream of those who pay their electricity, Internet bills and own a sufficiently powerful device with some extra storage the platform can run seamlessly.

Imagine a YouTube that didn't need to store thousands of copies of a viral video but leveraged the torrent like swarm IPFS to allow you to share the most viral video to your neighbor and therefore contribute to the operation and not need to waste energy and space on streaming a popular cat video. Allowing the organization to not have to sell your data to make ends meet!

I started Substratum.cloud which for now is a repository on tangle.org

Check out my current progress making a private distributed storage provider using AT Proto for login and sharing.

https://straiforos.tngl.sh/substratum.cloud/

Until next time!

~ Triforce