So I tried Scuttlebutt for a bit. ( https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/ ) It's supposed to be an "off grid" distributed social network, and I it does succeed at that -- there's a lot of foragers, gardeners and nomads using it, which is a testament to its focus.
The only part that seems wonky is the amount of resources it requires to function at a minimum. One guy said he got kicked out of a cafe for hogging the internet, and the public library blocks the technology needed by scuttlebutt.
So yeah, Scuttlebutt works, kind of, but "off the grid" is not just store it on your hard drive and sneakernet it around like a github repo. You have to support the actual circumstances of "off the grid" which is *limited resources* and non-infinite time near a computer.
Reminds me of all the cryptocurrencies I can’t buy bread with: they aim for the target, hit something else, and call victory...
But, I see things finally warming up to the FreeNet approach in general, working out the kinks and the usability of it, and it won't be long until these growing pains go away and we're all taking control of tech for ourselves -- after all, we have radios, hard drives, a massive amount of CPU at the tips of our fingers, but are still wed to the server/client legacy built into the internet. We'll break it... sometime...
@upside this is why I'm all fired up for implementing scuttlebutt (or a fork.. hwo knows) not-in-node and with a much smaller footprint. I'm imagining being able to run your whole social network off of a usb stick for example... very light weight... hopefully ssb will get there. :)
@XavierJulep Wow, yes, that would be amazing!