Storj: Not a Dropbox Killer(shitcoin.com)
shitcoin.com
Storj: Not a Dropbox Killer
https://shitcoin.com/storj-not-a-dropbox-killer-1a9f27983d70
138 comments
I don't think true personal financial need drives much of this. Anybody smart enough to pull off a con like this could get an adequate job and make enough to live comfortably on.
I think the problem comes from people who won't stop there. Some are just sucking voids of desire; they always want more. Others want to be on top, to be number one. In my view, these people are broken.
So personally, I wonder about how we keep broken people in check, and how we rework society to produce fewer broken people.
There's a great bit in Iain Banks's Player of Games where the main character, who is from a post-scarcity utopia, visits a classic stellar empire, one clearly a stand-in for the worst parts of our current culture. The rich, imperial upper class types he's talking with have a hard time understanding the main character's lack of interest in owning. They ask, "Could you have a planet?" His take was roughly, "Well, I'm sure you could find an empty planet and land on it, but what would you do with it?"
It's something I think of often when I'm dealing with people trapped in a scarcity mentality.
I think the problem comes from people who won't stop there. Some are just sucking voids of desire; they always want more. Others want to be on top, to be number one. In my view, these people are broken.
So personally, I wonder about how we keep broken people in check, and how we rework society to produce fewer broken people.
There's a great bit in Iain Banks's Player of Games where the main character, who is from a post-scarcity utopia, visits a classic stellar empire, one clearly a stand-in for the worst parts of our current culture. The rich, imperial upper class types he's talking with have a hard time understanding the main character's lack of interest in owning. They ask, "Could you have a planet?" His take was roughly, "Well, I'm sure you could find an empty planet and land on it, but what would you do with it?"
It's something I think of often when I'm dealing with people trapped in a scarcity mentality.
Not radical at all, greed ruins everything.
The more we can decrease it in society – the more freedom we'll all get.
The more we can decrease it in society – the more freedom we'll all get.
Greed appears to me to be fundamentally intrinsic to human behavior and culture. I don't think it's realistic to try to get rid of it. Rather I think it would be more effective to use it as an incentive and actively limit its negative externalities.
Greed as we see it today is a symptom of our economics system. The system encourages greedy behavior, you win if you act greedy. I'm currently working on simulations attacking this problem, focusing on systems that discourage competitive actions and encourage cooperation and equality. A resulting society based on a more egalitarian economic system wouldn't be a utopia, but I hypothesize that we can create a much better world by attacking the root of all out systems and what types of behaviors it rewards.
I believe it's an educational/cultural problem and not a systematic one.
Bad actors will corrupt any system out of greed for wealth and power.
Bad actors will corrupt any system out of greed for wealth and power.
There are lots of "fundamentally intrinsic" harmful elements of human behavior and culture but civilization is slowly getting them under control.
But there is a vast difference between getting something under control and getting rid of it.
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
How do you suggest we do that?
Only give power to people who don't want it.
There's an SF writer I really like for his books in the vein of this. His name is L. E. Modesitt, and some of his books that discuss this are the "Parafaith War" and probably the best "Adiamante."
In Douglas Adams's books the president of the universe is completely powerless because anyone who wants to be president should absolutely not be given any real authority.
The real ruler is a man living in a shack in the middle of nowhere who only cares about his cat and an occasional glass of whiskey.
The real ruler is a man living in a shack in the middle of nowhere who only cares about his cat and an occasional glass of whiskey.
That's where some of us are destined to end up, I'm afraid. :)
It's a pretty old idea. The Bene Gesserit surely got it from Other Memory. They just figured out how to make it practical.
By observing our behaviors and eliminating harmful ones, i.e. through mindfulness of one's actions and motivations.
Build great stuff and don't be greedy - set an example. Make those greedy over mediocrity look bad. Build for the sake of building, because that's reward enough.
Maybe that's enough of a reward for you, but personally I work because I like to get paid. The fact that I enjoy my work immensely is just a happy accident. There are things I enjoy doing even more than my work - much more so! - and if I did not need to get paid, I'd be doing those things instead.
Just wondering: If you got so rich from crypto currency that you could retire, would you retire? Start your own company? Just do fun stuff? Or keep working?
I myself work, to occupy myself with interesting problems, so I would keep doing this, regardless of my wealth.
I myself work, to occupy myself with interesting problems, so I would keep doing this, regardless of my wealth.
Wealthy enough to really never work again? Yes, I'd absolutely "retire." I'd still "work", in the sense that, say, angel investors work, or people own real estate; I'd also still write software in my free time.
But for the most part, no I wouldn't continue doing what I do now because I'd stop consulting and I would never again be an individual contributor. I'd probably devote "professional focus" to investing and academic research in math and cryptography while traveling all over the world like Tom from Myspace.
I think in conversations like this the dimension people like myself are talking about is freedom. I'd still work on what I'm passionate about even if I was wealthy, I would just cease doing it in a way that I don't have total control and direction over my work. That circles back to my original point - my passion for my work is not nearly enough of an incentive for me to do it if I'm not doing it with total autonomy.
But for the most part, no I wouldn't continue doing what I do now because I'd stop consulting and I would never again be an individual contributor. I'd probably devote "professional focus" to investing and academic research in math and cryptography while traveling all over the world like Tom from Myspace.
I think in conversations like this the dimension people like myself are talking about is freedom. I'd still work on what I'm passionate about even if I was wealthy, I would just cease doing it in a way that I don't have total control and direction over my work. That circles back to my original point - my passion for my work is not nearly enough of an incentive for me to do it if I'm not doing it with total autonomy.
But, but what about love, friendship and the feeling of connectedness? Is freedom what people should desire?
This naive approach likely leads to the head-down artist or creator being exploited by the greedy manager/agent/parasite/whatever, not some sort of life changing event for those who see this person's work and suffering with profit left on the table.
If you're naive, but not being greedy doesn't require naivety. In fact it probably requires some awareness to understand that money can be an anchor.
You're making $140k a year. Nice. How much of your time and attention and energy are you trading for that? Is it worth it?
You're making $140k a year. Nice. How much of your time and attention and energy are you trading for that? Is it worth it?
> Build for the sake of building, because that's reward enough.
My daughter can't eat the sake of building.
My daughter can't eat the sake of building.
I didn't literally mean do it for free. There's a tradeoff between comfort and freedom that's different for different people.
A "scam" implies intent, it's very possible/likely that a lot of icos have good intentions, but are inherently complicated and hard to implement.
True. I also think that it becomes a scam when you give up, and keep the money that's left. Say what you will about Secret (anyone remember that app?), but they returned money when they stopped. ICO funded projects? Who knows? Maybe just buy lambos as the author said.
> ... but they returned money when they stopped.
After they took a couple mil for themselves :) [0]
[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-founders-pocket-6-mill...
After they took a couple mil for themselves :) [0]
[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-founders-pocket-6-mill...
I think the upsides of "greed" outweigh the downsides. Getting rid of greed to thwart con artists would be throwing out the baby with the bath water.
If we removed financial (that is, material) need from society, we'd be in an utopia of endless plenty. This has been dreamed about for millennia. While not theoretically impossible, some children a society has a number of practical problems, like the human psychology. (Reworking humans is in the same ballpark. Being replaced by by other species, or machines, might be good — for them.)
New review is up! https://shitcoin.com/openbazaar-what-happened-to-bitcoins-eb...
[deleted]
I don't think this would work out. Think of it, most of what we do (fighting each other) makes sense on a nihilistic basis.
If we are peaceful, suddenly existence doesn't make any sense. And we are just better off killing our existence.
Fighting for existence is what pushed humans (or living creatures) to exist up to this day.
If we are peaceful, suddenly existence doesn't make any sense. And we are just better off killing our existence.
Fighting for existence is what pushed humans (or living creatures) to exist up to this day.
How about we say no to Communism?
[deleted]
Looks like the Storj coin is trading higher now than when it first launched.
https://coinmarketcap.com/assets/storj/
The level of fraud and stupidity in the ICO world is pretty shocking. It's not going to be pretty when the bubble bursts.
https://coinmarketcap.com/assets/storj/
The level of fraud and stupidity in the ICO world is pretty shocking. It's not going to be pretty when the bubble bursts.
There was that SEC report a while back that sounded like it was gonna end the wild west era of ICOs, and though I don't keep up with ICO news I haven't heard of any big new launches in a while.
My impression is that it has accelerated if anything. Random teams are raising 5-10m$ daily, and people who missed out on the first wave a few months ago are now gearing up to be a part of the second wave.
A good overview of the amount of these things is here: https://www.icoalert.com/
Not all of them will raise successfully, but the percentage is way higher than you would expect. Not to mention some of the longer ongoing sales, such as EOS, with 200m+$ raises. Either way, it's still quite insane out there.
A good overview of the amount of these things is here: https://www.icoalert.com/
Not all of them will raise successfully, but the percentage is way higher than you would expect. Not to mention some of the longer ongoing sales, such as EOS, with 200m+$ raises. Either way, it's still quite insane out there.
Almost all crypto market action is in China. And the ICO market there is so pathological that it's the exchanges asking for regulation.
http://news.8btc.com/okcoin-ceo-host-non-public-ico-regulati...
http://news.8btc.com/okcoin-ceo-host-non-public-ico-regulati...
The incumbents are always in favor of regulation, it prevents competition.
I think in this case it's more that they already have various governments breathing down their necks, so a show of regulation is just the thing - and trying to blame the terrible assets they're trading, rather than being blamed themselves for putting them up for trading.
The thing is that icos can just move abroad.
only if they also exclude US persons
How would the US enforce that? Especially if ico runners remain anonymous
The ICOs enforce that, because there is no one who will stand in the USG's way from fucking them up if they don't.
How many ICOs have you heard of with anonymous-only distribution?
How many ICOs have you heard of with anonymous-only distribution?
They're frequently tied to actual companies with known principals.
It's a crypto bull market. Most of the coins are at all time highs.
It is in dollar terms, but not in BTC terms...
bookchin: https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...
I followed the storj reddit for a while, since I bought into the crowdsale with Bitcoin. (Since sold. There was some kind of pump the other week on bittrex.) After the crowdsale, they appeared to be really rather disorganised. They took the $30m, sent everybody receipts, and then... nothing. No newsletters, no mails, no nothing, aside from occasional promises on reddit from one of the founders that things would improve. But they never really did. Couldn't even be bothered to wipe their noses and put their pants back on for long enough to click 'send' on a form email ;) Top marks for actually having a product, though...
BTC and ETH have appreciated significantly since the crowdsale finished, so heaven knows how much that $30m is worth now, and/or what they're going to do with it...
I followed the storj reddit for a while, since I bought into the crowdsale with Bitcoin. (Since sold. There was some kind of pump the other week on bittrex.) After the crowdsale, they appeared to be really rather disorganised. They took the $30m, sent everybody receipts, and then... nothing. No newsletters, no mails, no nothing, aside from occasional promises on reddit from one of the founders that things would improve. But they never really did. Couldn't even be bothered to wipe their noses and put their pants back on for long enough to click 'send' on a form email ;) Top marks for actually having a product, though...
BTC and ETH have appreciated significantly since the crowdsale finished, so heaven knows how much that $30m is worth now, and/or what they're going to do with it...
FTFA:
The commit pulse will tell me the frequency of code changes... Why has the activity stopped? My best guess is that funds have been raised. Why code when you can buy lambos?
The commit pulse will tell me the frequency of code changes... Why has the activity stopped? My best guess is that funds have been raised. Why code when you can buy lambos?
I wonder if there's something illegal or fraudulent about raising all that money and then doing a half-assed job on the project?
I understand there's a thin line between a failed business venture and outright fraud/lying, but stories like this seem so slimy.
I understand there's a thin line between a failed business venture and outright fraud/lying, but stories like this seem so slimy.
The fundraiser itself may well have been a violation of "qualified investor" rules. The SEC may well catch up with them eventually if they remain in the US.
It looks like their early investors are unhappy for other reasons too: https://safenetforum.org/t/storj-screws-their-ico-token-hold...
It looks like their early investors are unhappy for other reasons too: https://safenetforum.org/t/storj-screws-their-ico-token-hold...
I don't think so, it's pretty much up to the investors to do their due diligence. On that note, what I'm really curious about is who these people are that keep pouring money into these half-assed projects...
With $30M shouldn't they have dozens of people polishing their product?
The ideas men are working very hard on the documentation, and totally not spending their time spamming Twitter and Reddit to try to counter this story. e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/6w5q1f/youll_be_p...
(yes, they actually bothered trying to promote their thing on /r/buttcoin)
Pay no attention to the glaring lack of actual dev work behind the curtain!
(yes, they actually bothered trying to promote their thing on /r/buttcoin)
Pay no attention to the glaring lack of actual dev work behind the curtain!
A blockchain is at the end of the day nothing else than a distributed database where everyone can run nodes.
This is a hell of an effort and everyone who is using this 'feature' needs a very good reason and use case which justifies the costs.
Every new ICO should answer the question if a distributed BFT database is required. If yes is the benefit big enough? If not then just forget it. Or invest and sell the first minute this scam is on an exchange.
About Storj and similar coins: why do I want a decentral Dropbox? If I want to host my files in the cloud, what is the benefit of having a distributed decentral BFT db?
This is a hell of an effort and everyone who is using this 'feature' needs a very good reason and use case which justifies the costs.
Every new ICO should answer the question if a distributed BFT database is required. If yes is the benefit big enough? If not then just forget it. Or invest and sell the first minute this scam is on an exchange.
About Storj and similar coins: why do I want a decentral Dropbox? If I want to host my files in the cloud, what is the benefit of having a distributed decentral BFT db?
> why do I want a decentral Dropbox?
The easiest reason I can think of is privacy and anti-censorship. From current events, some groups may experience more and more trouble hosting their content on "public" providers like Google, Dropbox, or Amazon.
Decentralization is an astute counter.
The easiest reason I can think of is privacy and anti-censorship. From current events, some groups may experience more and more trouble hosting their content on "public" providers like Google, Dropbox, or Amazon.
Decentralization is an astute counter.
An ICO makes sense for crowdfunding in very limited conditions:
* if you have a technical problem that requires decentralised, cryptographically verified tokens (if it doesn’t need tokens, they shouldn’t be bolted on);
* if the tokens are directly usable on the platform itself;
* if at least a proof-of-concept of the technology verifiably exists;
* it also helps if the idea is even plausible as a business.
Unsurprisingly, most ICOs don’t meet these criteria.
The closest I've seen is Civic, which tried quite hard to meet the first three. However, for the fourth, it's still using a blockchain to solve a problem that only exists if you use a blockchain.
* if you have a technical problem that requires decentralised, cryptographically verified tokens (if it doesn’t need tokens, they shouldn’t be bolted on);
* if the tokens are directly usable on the platform itself;
* if at least a proof-of-concept of the technology verifiably exists;
* it also helps if the idea is even plausible as a business.
Unsurprisingly, most ICOs don’t meet these criteria.
The closest I've seen is Civic, which tried quite hard to meet the first three. However, for the fourth, it's still using a blockchain to solve a problem that only exists if you use a blockchain.
Why is Sia important? https://www.reddit.com/r/siacoin/comments/6tmx0r/why_is_sia_...
How much storj you wanna bet that Gordon Hall guy is the only person in the world who understands the entirety of Storj? Scary.
What relation does he have with the project? He's not even listed on the team:
https://storj.io/team.html
There was a $30MM ICO which ended May 25th. The price of ETH was $177 at the time. Not bad! Dropbox’ first seed round was only $15,000.
I don't get it. Don't understand why people want to get a lot of money, put a ton of pressure on themselves, and then put out a shoddy half-baked, half-finished product. You see this with almost all software now but the cryptocurrency craze has made it endemic. People who have shown nothing are getting 30 million dollars in funding. Shouldn't you earn it first? Isn't that healthy?
You guys don't need $30 million dollars to do stuff like this. You're lying to yourself if believe you do. This is $30k effort. How about putting your head down, shutting your mouth, building something great, and then showing the world? Is that crazy? You can only assume these people are more about $$$ than what they are building.
What relation does he have with the project? He's not even listed on the team:
https://storj.io/team.html
There was a $30MM ICO which ended May 25th. The price of ETH was $177 at the time. Not bad! Dropbox’ first seed round was only $15,000.
I don't get it. Don't understand why people want to get a lot of money, put a ton of pressure on themselves, and then put out a shoddy half-baked, half-finished product. You see this with almost all software now but the cryptocurrency craze has made it endemic. People who have shown nothing are getting 30 million dollars in funding. Shouldn't you earn it first? Isn't that healthy?
You guys don't need $30 million dollars to do stuff like this. You're lying to yourself if believe you do. This is $30k effort. How about putting your head down, shutting your mouth, building something great, and then showing the world? Is that crazy? You can only assume these people are more about $$$ than what they are building.
hi, i'm gordon. and yeah, unfortunately i might be the only person who understands the entirety of the core library. yeah, that's scary. but i wouldn't bet any storj tokens on it because the payoff wouldn't be so great.
i'm not listed on the team anymore, because i - along with several others left the project during and after the token sale (empty handed, mind you) for various reasons.
i agree, storj didn't need $30mm (but did need more than $30k though, to be fair).
> You can only assume these people are more about $$$ than what they are building.
a reasonable assumption, but let's draw the line between those building and those profiting, because this assumption is not fair (or accurate) in describing the people who actually did the building.
i'm not listed on the team anymore, because i - along with several others left the project during and after the token sale (empty handed, mind you) for various reasons.
i agree, storj didn't need $30mm (but did need more than $30k though, to be fair).
> You can only assume these people are more about $$$ than what they are building.
a reasonable assumption, but let's draw the line between those building and those profiting, because this assumption is not fair (or accurate) in describing the people who actually did the building.
Thanks for the response Gordon. Sorry to paint you with that brush. You've got my respect, if it means anything, probably took a lot of talent and effort to build. Good luck and keep fighting the good fight.
That sucks man. Have they begged you to come back yet?
As has been mentioned elsewhere, why would they beg when they have FU money and can buy Lambos.
They can honestly say that Storj lead developer left of personal reasons and no one else can take over.
There is no obligation on their part to pay anything back.
Like the author I have been following crypto currencies (and doing small time mining) since 2011. I have seen several boom-crash cycles.
Still I boggle at the madness of the crowds.
They can honestly say that Storj lead developer left of personal reasons and no one else can take over.
There is no obligation on their part to pay anything back.
Like the author I have been following crypto currencies (and doing small time mining) since 2011. I have seen several boom-crash cycles.
Still I boggle at the madness of the crowds.
Hi Gordon, sorry if this is too far off topic, but what software did you use to make your awesome github profile photo?
Haha, `libcaca` FTW http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/libcaca
You could use http://www.ascii-art-generator.org . Select "Image to Color Ascii Art". It is also using libcaca.
99% of crypto is about speculation, not investment; there's less and less talk about real utility as the bubble inflates and the need for real code (or even real ideas) to support the narrative decreases. I'm reminded of 1999 when the proverbial shoeshine boys were buying every IPO with ".com" in the name, driven by the reliable twin engines of fear (of missing out) and greed (money for nothing). Look at the bright colored icons and fun-sounding names on coinmarketcap: it's a 24/7/365 global penny stock arcade. When you view coins and ICOs through this lens the current state of the industry starts to make a lot more sense.
Gordon Hall quit the team shortly after the funding completed. Same with several other Storj engineers, and their COO. A few days before the sale the CEO was demoted and kicked off of the board. They still don't have a replacement.
thanks david, if i could rewrite git history for the sole purpose of not being associated with it anymore, i think i would. i think a few of us would.
Are you asking why people take $30m in uncollateralized funding and release broken software instead of taking $30k with some (albeit very little) governance and attempt to release quality, value creating products?
Very scary. He left the project and development hasn't picked back up. Found this in the comments of the article:
https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...
https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...
You don't know why people want 30 million dollars for nothing?
> why people want to get a lot of money, put a ton of pressure on themselves, and then put out a shoddy half-baked, half-finished product.
Other way round: produce a half-baked product, get a lot of money, hope your investors are too libertarian to set law enforcement on you.
> Shouldn't you earn it first? Isn't that healthy?
Have you heard of this thing called "capitalism"?
Other way round: produce a half-baked product, get a lot of money, hope your investors are too libertarian to set law enforcement on you.
> Shouldn't you earn it first? Isn't that healthy?
Have you heard of this thing called "capitalism"?
I know I personally would love to get $30,000,000 for $30,000 in effort... That is the type of return people dream of....
You got it backwards. Put out a shoddy, half-baked, half-finished product and then get $30 million.
You can only assume these people are more about $$$ than what they are building.
Bingo.
Bingo.
It's worth checking out Sia, which doesn't seem to get much attention: https://sia.tech/
It works, they have an active development team, and the network keeps growing: https://siahub.info/map
It works, they have an active development team, and the network keeps growing: https://siahub.info/map
Agree, Sia does look very promising. But plenty of work needs to be done before it is a real product. The first-use experience isn't good right now.
How many technically challenging products have been overnight successes?
One thing that is really confounding about all the anti-blockchain rhetoric on HN is that people seem to expect these products to be finished instantaneously. Building great products takes years.
One thing that is really confounding about all the anti-blockchain rhetoric on HN is that people seem to expect these products to be finished instantaneously. Building great products takes years.
True, but if you visit a site like http://sia.tech/ , in my opinion it gives the impression of a product ready to use today. Though if you look at their roadmap https://trello.com/b/Io1dDyuI/sia-public-roadmap , you get another (more realistic) picture.
Blockchain has had eight years to come up with a use case that isn't a cryptocurrency. (And cryptocurrency has had eight years to come up with a use case that isn't illicit goods.) At this point, it's entirely reasonable to ask where the beef is.
It got my attention. You can expect a review of Sia on shitcoin.com soon!
It also has one of the only dev teams in the decentralized storage space that truly understand the power (and more importantly, the limitations) of blockchain.
What bugs me the most about the whole ICO game is that it casts a long dark shadow about the whole blockchain stuff. Storj as well as other ideas in the realm are based on great ideas and I'd love to see them succeed. However, that Storj was able to obtain $30M in funding is really just awful. Sooner or later the cryptocoin market will crash and when this day comes and those projects still have no inherent value a lot of people will be pissed and leave the whole blockchain thing.
People didn't leave the Internet because of the dot com bubble burst. If blockchain has an advantage over more centralized approaches, it will bounce back as well.
In the dotcom bust investors lost their money, not the users. In the crypto world you are an user when you are invested (in smaller or larger extent). I agree, if blockchain apps really prove to be more powerful a possible bust won't really hurt, but in this state we are right now (no real world adoption for most of the stuff) a bust would be toxic.
In this ICO bubble clueless investors are losing their money too. There's enough scams to go around for everyone.
Blockchain, as a technology of its own, is not that interesting. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies around it is what makes everyone excited
Presumably that money will keep circulating once it's spent, so is it really so bad?
Because the money was defrauded. That's a huge point.
The fact that "money will keep circulating" is irrelevant. It's like saying, "Sure, the thief took your money, but you shouldn't say it's 'gone'. He spent the money on booze and cigarettes, and then the store owner spent it on rent and food. So you see? The money isn't really gone, it's circulating and increasing value for everyone!"
The fact that "money will keep circulating" is irrelevant. It's like saying, "Sure, the thief took your money, but you shouldn't say it's 'gone'. He spent the money on booze and cigarettes, and then the store owner spent it on rent and food. So you see? The money isn't really gone, it's circulating and increasing value for everyone!"
Unless you're an active investor who is nuanced on the details of the protocols, just don't worry about it. You'll wake up one day, back up your files to the new cloud, you'll pay using some crypto app - and you'll have no idea that decentralization was ever involved.
When it goes wrong, and you're wondering who to complain to, then the decentralisation might start to matter.
Says the guy posting via HTTP over TCP. Like I said, just don't worry about it. It'll be kid proof in 10 years.
The rules for being a smart investor haven't changed. If you want low risk safe investments then no one is selling you on ICOs. It's like people on the sideline want "some of that Internet money" without taking any risk. That's not how high risk ventures work. So explain to me what people are complaining about?
The rules for being a smart investor haven't changed. If you want low risk safe investments then no one is selling you on ICOs. It's like people on the sideline want "some of that Internet money" without taking any risk. That's not how high risk ventures work. So explain to me what people are complaining about?
Ever tried reaching Google tech support? Centralization can make an individual customer, even paying say $10/year, too small.
A flip side of the (crypto)coin so to speak.
I invested in Storj, and I also put some resources behind farming. First, there are lots of issues, but that's to be expected with an early product. At least there is a product. Second, this is a very different project than Dropbox, a centralized cloud storage originally built on AWS. Comparing the two is exactly fair, and the long term value proposition of Story is very different from Dropbox. Third, They are building the platform, and as it improves, the clients will get better, simpler, and a community will form; give it more time. Fourth, Dropbox was founded in 2007; it took substantial time to get the front end polished and working well. This product is more about the AWS side of the Dropbox equation than the Dropbox side.
Finally, some results on my Storj farming. Not super easy to use, not super efficient, but working, and I expect it will get better. I have farmed about 15TB of data (storage) since the ICO. Its growing too; so there are real paying users using it.
I invested in Storj, and I also put some resources behind farming. First, there are lots of issues, but that's to be expected with an early product. At least there is a product. Second, this is a very different project than Dropbox, a centralized cloud storage originally built on AWS. Comparing the two is exactly fair, and the long term value proposition of Story is very different from Dropbox. Third, They are building the platform, and as it improves, the clients will get better, simpler, and a community will form; give it more time. Fourth, Dropbox was founded in 2007; it took substantial time to get the front end polished and working well. This product is more about the AWS side of the Dropbox equation than the Dropbox side.
Finally, some results on my Storj farming. Not super easy to use, not super efficient, but working, and I expect it will get better. I have farmed about 15TB of data (storage) since the ICO. Its growing too; so there are real paying users using it.
15TB is a lot for an individual, tiny for a business. What is your current estimate of time to breakeven?
I don't think there is a path to break even for storage alone, today. The real earnings seem to be in the transfer rates, but traffic is too low to ever consider it as anything other than an experiment. I heard Storj was going to prioritize farmers by latency and bandwidth; now that I've been reading about the turmoil, I'm not confident it will happen anytime soon.
My payout last month was ~$5 and I was in the top 30 by payout, if I remember correctly, but I had only received a couple of TB of data. This month has been much better, so maybe ~$100 but mostly because of data transfer. I've seen peak bandwidth of over 400Mbps in and out (800Mbps combined).
Interestingly, a number of the top earners have been trying to game the system by uploading a small amount of data until the shard ends up on their node and then doing the massive transfer to generate more Storj than the cost of the transit.
My payout last month was ~$5 and I was in the top 30 by payout, if I remember correctly, but I had only received a couple of TB of data. This month has been much better, so maybe ~$100 but mostly because of data transfer. I've seen peak bandwidth of over 400Mbps in and out (800Mbps combined).
Interestingly, a number of the top earners have been trying to game the system by uploading a small amount of data until the shard ends up on their node and then doing the massive transfer to generate more Storj than the cost of the transit.
To be fair this is how most pre-release software looks. I'm sure it works great on their test servers, but it takes time to document and fix all of the edge cases.
I understand the appeal of ICOs and cryptocurrencies and distributed storage that is automatically shared, decentralized, etc etc. But a part of me says "is this complexity necessary?". The appeal of a service like Dropbox is that it is simple. Most engineer friends I had at the time when services like Box and Dropbox started popping up, laughed at the idea... "It is just a fancy ftp". Now they all use these services in one way or another.
Simplicity is often an important overlooked killer feature.
And this is exactly the polar oppossite of that!
A friend of mine that has been doing ICOs behind the scenes (there is an entire methodology that makes them successful that include some questionable marketing techniques) has been pushing me to do an ICO. But one of the requirements is that the service you provide is directly tied to the currency itself. This file storage service is a perfect example of that. A cryptocurrency looking for a service that works with a paradigm vs a service that just centers on being useful for customers. I am just not interested in doing that...
I can't deny that this has been useful and profitable for him. Here has been doing successful multimilliondollar ICOs where he charges 100k a pop. To me, it just seems like such a scam to take advantage of this bubble, that I'd rather just build a healthy successful business "the old way"
Simplicity is often an important overlooked killer feature.
And this is exactly the polar oppossite of that!
A friend of mine that has been doing ICOs behind the scenes (there is an entire methodology that makes them successful that include some questionable marketing techniques) has been pushing me to do an ICO. But one of the requirements is that the service you provide is directly tied to the currency itself. This file storage service is a perfect example of that. A cryptocurrency looking for a service that works with a paradigm vs a service that just centers on being useful for customers. I am just not interested in doing that...
I can't deny that this has been useful and profitable for him. Here has been doing successful multimilliondollar ICOs where he charges 100k a pop. To me, it just seems like such a scam to take advantage of this bubble, that I'd rather just build a healthy successful business "the old way"
> Simplicity is often an important overlooked killer feature.
> And this is exactly the polar oppossite of that!
I totally agree but this project seems to be still in alpha state. Have they advertised any kind of stable end-user friendly release yet? It doesn't look like it and therefor attacking the user-friendliness of the project seems a bit pre-mature, I'm sure the first alpha version of dropbox was unusable too by common people it's just that this project is open source and therefor anyone can give it a try before it gets stable.
> And this is exactly the polar oppossite of that!
I totally agree but this project seems to be still in alpha state. Have they advertised any kind of stable end-user friendly release yet? It doesn't look like it and therefor attacking the user-friendliness of the project seems a bit pre-mature, I'm sure the first alpha version of dropbox was unusable too by common people it's just that this project is open source and therefor anyone can give it a try before it gets stable.
So they're basically an ICO consultant or contractor? It looks like it's just as profitable to him as it sounds.
As far as those marketing techniques go, I'm aware of a lot of them such as paying for press releases or articles and paying users to shill their ICO everywhere, buying twitter followers, etc, but I wonder how much worse it gets. I guess it depends on the ICO and those behind it, some obviously 'just' use shady tactics while others completely lie and defraud investors.
As far as those marketing techniques go, I'm aware of a lot of them such as paying for press releases or articles and paying users to shill their ICO everywhere, buying twitter followers, etc, but I wonder how much worse it gets. I guess it depends on the ICO and those behind it, some obviously 'just' use shady tactics while others completely lie and defraud investors.
sadly much worse. Without getting into many details, part of the tactics involves writing a pseudo paper and then getting endorsements from high profile people within a specific community. It is legal, but shady as hell IMHO.
"Too complex."
This. Developers really must spend a lot more time and mental energy on UX if they intend things to be used by anyone other than developers with lots of time in their hands.
This. Developers really must spend a lot more time and mental energy on UX if they intend things to be used by anyone other than developers with lots of time in their hands.
[deleted]
[deleted]
What's the likelihood that ISPs will levy higher rates on bandwidth for things like Storj and Filecoin? This 'next-generation' model of enabling people to profit off of cheap/unlimited internet packages seems like a juicy target.
As far as I can see their idea is to incentivise people to "rent out" hard drive space to the Storj network, and get StorjTokens in return, although it's not quite clear from the website what you can do with these coins or what value they hold.
I think it's interesting, I guess protocols like BitTorrent don't work for personal files as you need seeders to be available at all times....I'm half inclined to think Storj might suffer from the same issue if every node that is storing replicas of your blocks goes away - or will the financial "incentive" be enough for people to keep their nodes alive.
What happens if the value of Storj just drops to the floor?
I think it's interesting, I guess protocols like BitTorrent don't work for personal files as you need seeders to be available at all times....I'm half inclined to think Storj might suffer from the same issue if every node that is storing replicas of your blocks goes away - or will the financial "incentive" be enough for people to keep their nodes alive.
What happens if the value of Storj just drops to the floor?
I'm the author and didn't notice this post on HN. I have reviewed another blockchain product! The review will be live on shitcoin.com at around 7 AM EST on Monday.
Does anybody here know of a good video/tech-talk that gives an in-depth introduction to blockchain technology? Something at academic level, and good for a Sunday afternoon? Thanks in advance!
This is much more basic than academic level, for which you could maybe start with the original Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin white paper? - but this video is a fantastic introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
I'm still curious as to how is this profitable to whoever created it. There is a shit ton of code in this project - this same amount of code written for an employer or commercial project would net the author quite a bit of money - so what's the benefit creating this abomination (that doesn't even work) versus just working on something actually useful?
[deleted]
This one has done whole lot more for their money than vast majority of other ICO 'startups' that have nothing but nice site and a water-filled, meaningless whitepaper.
Seems like this competes more with the free
https://upspin.io
https://upspin.io
People that chain commands without && makes me cringe, I had an Infra guy delete a prod website once like that...
No idea how command chaining could be involved in that (would love to know though!) but if somebody mistakenly takes down a production service from lack of command chaining, let's just say command chaining would probably be the least of my concerns.
I do it to make the screenshots more readable and to show off my amazing skills.
shitcoin.com is an inspired domain name!
Ive been looking for more 'technical skeptic' posts about cash-grab cryptos, so this author better post more articles like this.
Got tired of hearing about some new amazing, world changing crypto coming out and then spending hours researching only to end up with a bad taste in my mouth. Both for the community and the tech itself.
Got tired of hearing about some new amazing, world changing crypto coming out and then spending hours researching only to end up with a bad taste in my mouth. Both for the community and the tech itself.
Good write up! It's great to see people testing out these projects.
Even the people who agree with and appreciate the effort of the skeptics are few compared to the number of irrational people who gladly follow the cons.
This is a bit radical (and probably outside the interest of HN), but if we somehow could remove personal financial need from society, imagine where our technologies might be driven?... instead of where they typically get hijacked and driven.
Television was once lauded as the future best thing to ever happen to education, but we know how that turned out. Same with the internet and web. And so on. Blockchain technologies are now the hottest and most ideal way to build a scam, because the audience is greedy and the technology is well beyond the comprehension of the average person.