But that's what Flickr do. That's like saying Flickr should charge Google because Google directs a lot of traffic to Flickr. Flickr want traffic.

If we're talking about scraping Flickr's info without going to the site then that's a different thing. But we're not.

The routing and encryption stuff is eye-wateringly complex, aye. But there are already far more robust solutions for that than this would need. This would only need to be as secure as the current web services are (not very secure at all). Anything on top of that would be an added benefit.

The major problem is that routing through a dynamic network of nodes is not currently going to be as fast as a simple web server. But, well, that is done currently through a distributed system currently (DNS) so that's probably solvable.

Surely, for the sake of keeping a consistent look-and-feel across your social network, you'd want to scrape Flickr's data and put it into your format.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that's how it's been done previously when everyone's trying to establish 'a brand'. But this wouldn't be that. Or wouldn't have to be, at least. I think people are smart enough to cope with some things looking different from others (Google+ and Facebook don't look the same but I manage to cope).

Having said that, if this thing took off I'm sure Flickr would be happy to provide an API whereby we could get pictures + ads + their logo somewhere from them and frame it how we like. Works out better for them because they're displaying their ads with less server load.

This could go two ways - it could be like the thing Pete described before where it simply points to where people have their information stored, or it could entirely replace those places and store everything locally.

Or it could do both. Or whatever.

Wasn't part of the point of this to not have adverts?

 

Edit: Yes, my replies are getting shorter. Can you tell I'm starting to wonder what point I'm arguing?

It wouldn't. Not that I care, I use adblock.

If someone wants to share photos via flickr then their users will see adverts from flickr via our thing. If they don't then they can use something else. Again, this is assuming it even plugs into existing services at all, which is unnecessary.

So do I. Except on certain sites, cos I'm nice like that. But you did mention getting an API from Flickr that gives us the photos and adverts. But that's just an example, and hypothetical, so I'm not sure how much further this can go.

 

If it doesn't use existing services, then we're back to people storing their stuff in "our" cloud, which would be other people's PC and servers. At which point most of the world will object because they don't understand/don't care what encryption does, and they don't understand that it's almost the same as using iCloud but the data isn't stored by Apple.

Doesn't really matter if they object. So long as enough understand and don't object. Game servers are a good example. There are plenty of those for all the people who want to play, most of whom probably don't know or care that that's some real person running the software on their server just to be nice.

Game servers don't hold your personal data. I suppose at this point the discussion changing to be about how you'd market the service: easily enough dumbed down to explain, but there'd still be a huge number of people who get half of the concept and then think "But what if photos of my grandchildren end up on the computer of some pedo?" Assuming they survived me trying to kill them for not knowing how to spell paedo, they'd just not use it rather than look into it any further.

Yeah I was just commenting on people's willingness to donate without getting any payment/recognition.

Marketing is... a whole other discussion :Y

Or they'd select the option saying "use local storage" instead of the one saying "use encrypted distributed storage", and then there's no worry.

The point of this is, there doesn't need to be one way.

Facebook (and G+ and everyone) enforce their fixed way onto people, and people have no choice but to put up with it (or not use the service, and thus not be able to communicate with people across the globe).

Doing it right means providing people with the ability to have things their own way - and that includes whether you store your photos on your home machine, or on an encrypted peer-to-peer network, or on your ISP's space, or on your flickr account, or on a dedicated server, or on a cloud data store, or on a corporate VPN, or wherever the photo sharer chooses.

Computers are supposed to fit around human's needs; so people choose what they want to do, and it's the software's job to do that as seamlessly as possible.

And that doesn't need any one entity to spend lots of money on flashy hardware.

I think you're great Peter (heart)

So I just got an advert "How To Lose Belly Fat" from an Australian company.

 

So on one hand that's good - it shows FB doesn't know everything about me (or at least doesn't tell advertisers).

 

But on the other hand, it does have me rather offended - that they would insult me by showing such an advert.

 

How dare they imply I'm fucking Australian! :@

Fucking w3rd homie.

I'm with Lucy. I LOVE ADBLOCK!

 

I hate facebook, my space, and quite a few others. I've tried some of them, and I'm not impressed. You go there to socialize. Not get buried in advertisements.

 

BEEHIVE RULES!

 

DP