plebbit doesn't require you to sync an entire ledger, it uses content addressing (IPFS), which lets you only download and seed the content you use, not the entire network. A plebbit "full node" is just an IPFS node (similar to a bittorrent client), it takes no space and has no sync time.
the idea is that if there's 100 providers eventually, and only 1 needs to not censor you to get your content, then it's unlikely you will be censored
we plan on adding IPFS webrtc and webtransport at some point, to reduce the need and load on the ipfs gateways, and whatever new that comes out that can help the browser/mobile clients. For example https://iroh.computer/ seems promising
the desktop client is fully P2P, it bundles an IPFS node, and the only requests it makes are through the IPFS node. (technically it makes one request to github for default communities, but we will remove that at some point). Also if your community or username uses a human readable name (optional), then you need to resolve that name somehow, we can technically support any name system anyone makes, and that might or might not be P2P.
the challenge exchange between the authors and community owners are arbitrary, they can be anything the community owner can code and that the author client understands, so POW is possible, but I'm not sure it would stop spam properly, a server can do a lot POW for cheap. Maybe combined with another challenge.
the community owner must configure some challenge exchange between his node and the users publishing to his node. the challenge is completely arbitrary, it can be a whitelist, a password, a super complex interactive game, sending a picture of your passport, account age, minimum karma, a combination of all these things, etc. Since it is arbitrary, it will evolve with time. Any method (already invented or invented in the future) that centralized platforms use to filter AI spam can also be used, but over P2P.
There is a disdain for federated protocols but I hardly see how this is any different except that there are no explicit federation features.
The "subplebbit" owner acts like the operator of a Mastodon or Matrix instance except as mentioned above, those were designed to aggregate data across instances.
The fundamental problem with these decentralised platforms is that they want to get rid of the human element but if you just let anyone get away with anything and everyone rehosts everyone else's data unconditionally, then you get something like zeronet which has its own Reddit clone. The problem with zeronet is that people advertise their illegal porn on your supposedly "family friendly" Reddit clone and your users involuntarily download it and make themselves criminally liable. Whether something should be legal or not is a philosophical question, someone has to make a decision and then enforce it. Any platform where users are allowed to upload arbitrary information requires moderation. There is no way around this. The only benefit of a decentralized app is that you can have smaller self hosted communities.
I spent a lot of time evaluating the technical viability of decentralised apps and honestly you should avoid it even if your use case requires it.
>The "subplebbit" owner acts like the operator of a Mastodon or Matrix instance
- Mastodon and lemmy instances can delete your account/community data (they own your data), on plebbit you own your data, it's on your device and you seed it P2P, community owners cant delete it
- Mastodon and lemmy instances can block you from accessing and interacting with other instances through their client, which forces you to use multiple clients to interact with all instances you want, on plebbit, the client accesses all content directly and p2p, community owners can't block you from accessing any content. You only have to use a single client.
- Mastodon and lemmy instances require a domain name, a static, public HTTP endpoint, an SSL certificate, DDOS protection to run. All which are complicated to set up, cost money, sometimes require KYC, sometimes require the command line and linux. Your server, domain, ssl and ddos protection provider are intermediaries that delete/block your account.
Whereas plebbit is a GUI executable like a bittorrent client, you download it, open it, that's it, you're done. No payments, no kyc, no command line, no config, no intermediaries that can shut down your account.
>Alas, I don't think it's yet ready for primetime. Is it fixable in a week?
We are 4 devs working full time on it. In my estimate it should be pretty smooth in around 1 year. We should also have an old.reddit interface as well for people who hate the new interface.
Each community owner must run a node 24/7 to seed his own community's content via IPFS. Similar to how you need to seed a torrent you client.
There's a GUI client so it's very easy, you just double click and leave it open.
It's also possible for centralized services to run communities for people, so it's technically possible to run a community without having to have any device run 24/7 yourself.
Thanks for the info! I'm intrigued by the different interfaces for the same content. I'll definitely keep an eye on this when reddit dies in a couple weeks!
