Sharing the Load

We all love music, funny videos, short stories, FOSS software, etc. We revel in the NEW age of instant entertainment, and the shared experience we have with each other in the form of social media. With the creation of block chains like STEEM (and the other services and currencies similar to it) we are finally creating a real, democratic funding model so that countless artists and creators can be rewarded for their hard work. However, there is a huge discrepancy between common understanding of the technologies, and what we expect from them.

Economy of Scale, or is it Scale of Economy?

YouTube is one of the most dominate media distribution system in the world today. But there was a time when YouTube was at the risk of going bankrupt but thankfully Google swooped in and bought their debt, changed the way that the system monetized videos and most importantly re-based the code to allow a near endless supply of storage for videos. Storage space, internet connection, and bandwidth costs, are always issues faced by companies that want to host long form information like videos.

Unfortunately the decentralized world doesn't have the money or the resources to have the YouTube like experience. Or do we?

---

Pirates, Torrents, and P2P

Recently I was at my brothers house, and he was talking about how he and his wife "jail broke" their media player so that they could download and play any number of films without having to pay for them. Now being a computer junkie for a long time I'm no stranger to these services and I'm not here to condone or condemn the behavior. Instead I want to highlight some of the features I think WE as a community need to adopt to help the decentralized platforms like Dtube and Dsound.

• Device interfaces: Most modern pirating services have an air of professionalism that is admirable, and most have downloadable clients for the major platforms which gives the software a much more polished look and feel that most web only interfaces just don't have.

• Forced Sharing: Consumer grade pirating clients either require the user to share the file while its downloading (stopping the upload at the same point as the download stops) or they bury the option to turn off sharing so the users upload whatever files they have downloaded continuously at a slow steady pace.

• Aggressive Caching: In most of these clients files are stored in hidden folders on the users computers. These files are sometimes deleted after a certain time, while others give you the option to "Save" the file indefinitely. This gives the user the option to use as much or as little storage space as they see fit without the hassle of ever "seeing" the files in their folders.

These platforms have learned something very important about human nature. Most of us don't care how we get it, or where it comes from as long as it comes fast and free. I think as a part of the decentralized pioneers we could learn a lot from these services and follow them into making applications that aren't about piracy but about highlighting and sharing the responsibility of the technology that we use.

---

The Solution

• Create a locally install-able interface that interacts with the STEEM blockchain, and ipfs.
• Give users an interface similar to spotify or itunes that allows them to stream and/or download, songs and videos directly to their computer.
• Make the application available for all users on all platforms with the ability to share playlists, and videos as posts to the chain.
• Create an interface within the application to handle uploads to dtube and dsound
• Allow users to favorite and save files to their local machine that will be shared back to the network.
• Create a pin for all file created on the computer and shared to the chain on the local machine to increase upload speeds and insure file retention.
• Create a reward system for those that use the system not based on content creation but just for hours of use.

To this end I've started working on this solution. The software will be written in QT and available first on Linux with Windows and Mac following closely behind. Android and iOS versions might be available as well but I don't believe they are the best devices for such a software as they are designed to consume not share data.

If you would like to be a part of the project feel free to drop a comment below. Follow and like me to see what else I'm up to and as always thanks for reading.

Sorry for the lack of pictures I didn't have any on hand and I'm running on my phones internet connection which is a bit spotty.