is this just a stealthy path way of giving everyone a sign in ID to the internet ?
The road to hell is paved with pod intentions.
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Does anyone know enough of Diaspora* to say how this may be different / better; can anyone guess why such efforts aren’t mentioned; can anyone guess why a VC firm would support his efforts? What’s the angle/business model?
Maybe they don’t intend this to be a free service? I’d cheerfully pay probably some single-digit number of dollars per month to be able to sign up for (and use) all the things without giving up my personal info.
That might be the result for the ad-driven parts, yeah. There are still plenty of sites whose hosting costs are covered either by donations or by charging a recurring fee.
I’d also like to know how they intend to prevent companies from making a copy of the data to which you’ve given them access.
I guess it could be. But what would that look like in practice? Your own data, secure, federated access, transparent, but not open source, and with a subscription model?
I’d strongly prefer open-source, but it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for me.
Okay. Main question to me would be ‘why trust them?’
I mean, I guess if they’re financially completely transparent you could deduce whether they’re selling (access to) your data that way (assuming they wouldn’t simply rake in the dough via another legal entity), but otherwise, it’s a bit hard for me to trust they won’t sell out, either secretly, or simply at some later point.
Presumably people would be able to move their data to other providers if a company proves unreliable. Or just self-host it.
Lee could be getting funding from “angel investments”. Such things are a feather in the cap of VCs.
I’m pretty sure he understands the issues with an ad driven internet.
The application is open source. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s gratis; but it does mean that a gratis one will exist.
It seems like a hype train is on the move to get the word out. It may take some time for the functional details to come out. “Hurry up and wait”!
Honestly, it may not be entirely complete.