Have you ever read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?
As a life long software developer with over 35 years of experience and a lifelong sci-fi enthusiast for even longer than that, I’ve always been drawn to the futuristic worlds illustrated in print in science fiction novels. Some guys like Cowboy Westerns, some guys like Tom Clancy action, others like business books or whatever. I liked books like Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
Why is this relevant right now? Why are you yammering on about a book you read when your daughter was less than one year old and still in the year of her birth in 1992, 31 years ago?
(Shit, thirty one YEARS ago? Anyway... moving on)
One character that left a lasting impression on me from Snow Crash is Hiro Protagonist. Hiro’s day job, as a street reporter in the dystopian, yet hyper-futuristic real world outside the "Street", the globally available virtual reality most people spend their lives logged in to, a world very similar to the one in the book and movie, "Ready Player One" is a remarkable reflection of the modern independent media landscape we see emerging today. His job as a VR live streamer, capturing the raw essence of real-world events for a global audience, resonated with me deeply.
Obviously, we have had Twitch, and YouTube and TikTok and Facebook and X/Twitter and other outlets that have come and gone, and we still await the virtual reality world that people actually want to wear strapped to their heads all day, but they have mostly been stale, commercialized, corporate offerings where, if you aren't being served meat at the table, you are the meat being served at the table.
In Snow Crash, Hiro’s reporting is not just about delivering news from his area with a VR connected live cam in real time, but about immersing the audience in the gritty realities of a world that’s both starkly dystopian and technologically advanced. He excels at this, and enjoys this kind of media production.
This concept of blending real-world experiences with digital media was a serious source of inspiration for me early in my tech career. It lead to me making a system exactly LIKE YouTube about 2 years before YouTube was launched, only mine was called "StreamRoller.net" but it was the same thing. And you all know I've built streaming networks here before as well on the chain back in years past and hard forks gone by.
But the idea of The Street. Of a world full of VR sword wielding, intense hacker-skill having, webcam toting bad asses never left my mind. If only there was a way to spread media without the corporate overlords. Sure, you can't stream live violence or certain other taboo and illegal things, but overall, media should be something anyone can make and push out or take and consume as they wish, sort of like food or drugs or anything else that becomes solely a personal decision to partake in or avoid.
So I stumbled into this post today by a fairly brand new Hivian whom I've already come to enjoy chatting with and know there will be some meat on the bones when reading what he posts. He's sort of a Hiro Protagonist type himself. Here's the post that lead to me ending up writing this one you are reading now:
@peaceandmoney dives into the state of main stream media in the UK, but it is globally good reading and he's a smart feller with insights and wisdom to share in a well written and readable way.
https://peakd.com/ocd/@peaceandmoney/the-corruption-of-the-british-television-industry
All of this made me think about stuff all day after I read that, and I had some conversations throughout the day that amplified it and it all planted the seed for this philosophical post about my current project: HiveStreams.Live.
Till now, my posts about HiveStreams.Live have been about the software. Hey the site is up! Hey I added tipping with HBD/Hive & Tokens! Hey I am close to finishing channel member fan systems, hey both the main Hive login tools work now, and so on.
But I have only discussed my actual intentions, my philosophy for this build, my aspiration and my desire and my MISSION for this project in one on ones with friends and interested passers by so far.
And so, now that many of you have seen and joined the site, I want you all to know:
HiveStreams.Live is designed to embody the very essence of Hiro Protagonist’s work and the spirit of the novel Snow Crash. It’s a live streaming platform built on a cryptocurrency blockchain, intended to bridge the gap between raw, creative, authentic, passionately crafted content made by humans living in a gritty modern landscape and using cutting-edge technologies for globally utilitarian, privately exchangeable crypto currencies, personal media distribution and unfiltered media consumption.
Much like Hiro’s street reporting, HiveStreams.Live aims to empower independent creators around this big, old, wet and dirty rock we all share our air on, and try to live together on, called Earth. I am looking at you, media makers who are not bound by traditional corporate media constraints - to share your stories, ideas, philosophies, outlooks, music, artwork, films, crafts, lessons, questions, discussions and news and any and every other kind of creative work, directly with a waiting, global audience starving for authentic sources to inform or entertain or educate them amidst a desolate landscape of corporatized trash media and inauthentic experiences. Yeah, we're all gonna watch the The Real Housewives of more like no where ever, ever again, but anyway...
By itself, not a brand new concept or anything, but it's harder to find than you think. Sure, there are the "Rumbles" of the world, decreeing themselves "free speech" platforms, but still oddly leaning one way or the other and mostly just about the usual USA political bullshit, and weak on the creative inputs and authenticity and certainly lacking the kind of community Hive fosters both at large eco-system wide, and also in its many vast sub-communities and the upcoming breakout communities as well.
But how many of these other big corporate media platforms come with their own untraceable currencies to use between audiences and creators instantly, grant login with blockchain authenticity to know for sure who you are watching or chatting with in stream chat is really that same person from the chain whom you can transact with directly and safely? And most importantly, generally anonymously if desired.
And how many such platforms come with their own vast audience of users already there and waiting for new ways to consume content from their favorite creators and platform personalities?
And how many did you have the chance to get on and participate in when they still had less than three paginated pages of users signed up and were only four days old as a publicly available application so far? That one's just for early adopter bragging rights, thank me when you're one of the "OG"s able to say "Yeah I've been on the HiveStreams for 7 or 8 years now" to some fresh minnow of the future?
In today’s world, where citizen journalism and independent media creators are more important than ever, creators who are driven and chosen and made to succeed or fail by truly free market media consumers, the same consumers who are choosing to choose what they consume and who are ditching the agenda driven, always on-message politically charged "television", in this new world, platforms like HiveStreams.Live are becoming increasingly important,
HiveStreams.Live seeks to offer a space where authenticity, creativity and independent thinking and freedom of participation can survive first, and continue to thrive into the future without the filters of mainstream media or organizational or corporate overlords holding the keys to admission onto the stage or the doors into the auditorium to watch the show.
The philosophy behind HiveStreams.Live is to create a digital space where the spirit of Hiro Protagonist’s VR adventures lives on. It’s about enabling individuals to contribute their voices and perspectives to a larger, global conversation, much like Hiro did in his dystopian reality. In doing so, I hope to inspire a new generation of creators to explore the intersection of technology and media, just as I was inspired by Hiro Protagonist’s visionary role.
As for all those features you guys keep begging me for, I'm on it!
Good talk tonight with @stoodkev moved the parser down the editor some on recurring billing for the otherwise already running but payment blocking Patreon style channel supporter membership subscription system, and working with the block explorer sites and my trusty AI sidekick, I was able to get most of the stuff ready to start coding out the automated posting> Once I get one post working, then posts will be like potato chips, I ate one so now I'll be able to eat them all, for pre-show "going live now!" posts or "monthly subscriber shoutout" posts or whatever other stuff we dream up in the HiveStreams Discord to put on my to-do list...
...and trust me fam, we're only 4 days in since launch, and that list is miles long (or kilometers even). People are all starting to ask for features and adding to it quickly. WHICH IS A GOOD THING! I love their enthusiasm. It fuels my own for this project.
In Summary
I am building a live streaming platform, but I often call it a "Hub", and the spokes will be @Bambukah's tipping service on Hive currencies or @StoodKev's Keychain or @hiveio's Hivesigner to login, eventually probably help from the guys and gals of 3speak to help store stream recording replays, and many other folks and things...
All the things in HiveStreams that need specialized services that already exist, will rely where logical and feasible on other hive "pieces" to complete the puzzle in a way that can only happen through all the tools and utilities in front of and behind the software Im making for the community to make content for the community, by the community, using the communities technical contributions as the tools.
Like the tipping service or the login tools or the video storage and hosting sites or the blog publishing sites, or the discord bots that will eventually come to exist for it and on and on.
But also under the hood, code contributions like Hive-PHP or HiveJS that are API connection code frameworks made by Hivians for Hivians to develop chain integrations with and so on in the underpinnings of the software.
HiveStreams is going to outsource to other hive tools wherever I can, to be efficient, to expand the use of said tools and services in another vector of exposure and use case, and to further involve "All of us" in being part of the us that is "all in this together"
At least that's some of the vision, for all you watching along at home.
And while you're watching along from home, you should keep an eye on HiveStreams and watch some live streaming along from home too, because that's how all of this works!
See YOU in the streams!
@SirCork
Founder & Developer: @HiveStreams
@PolleNation Hive Witness Partner
Developer: Dead Follower Tools & When Lambo?
Co-Founder: @YouAreHOPE
Hey if you like this stuff, vote for our witness @pollenation ! That surely would help!
Join the Hive Pollen Nation!
Vote @PolleNation as your witness.
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We appreciate your support!
If I may, I'd like throw this idea into the mix..
The FOSS Peerhub (https://Peerhub.app) plugin took us a couple of years to build and we've been adding more to it ever since. Install it and try it!
Hosting a Peerhub-powered server/instance (using https://Agori.host or your own server)
Storage
Transcoding
Syndication & Discoverability
P2P
User-engagement thru multi-network aggregation
No need to reinvent any wheels.
We've built it all for you, you've just got to use it.
Questions? Ping us on matrix: http://agorise.chat or [email protected]
Thanks for the information. I have in fact, been to the websites. I've got it all under consideration with several technical options, as well as operational and philosophical considerations to consider about what I do with any external networking infra or content distribution / syndication, for sure.
I am sure at some point we will have occasion to have a longer talk, for now I am heads down making the fundamentals work. And that's step one.
The fundamentals have been done for you.
Just slap a UI onto your Peerhub instance, done.
Yeah, see that is not at all what I am looking for. Though it may have sounded that way in some of this. For one thing I am 100% Hive / HBD and to some degree second layer Hive Engine sidechain tokens but at core Hive/HBD, only, no other chains, no other networks, 100% "Made in Hive" so to speak, like a "Made in the USA" kinda vibe. I don't want to syndicate to other networks, and send streams, for example, though my users are welcome to restream anywhere and include HiveStreams.Live, we won't be in the middle of that. That's not our position. If anything, Other networks would need to simulcast to us, to reach the Meta Hive Community in a hive login driven, "in house, in brand, hive-centric" streaming hub.
Browsing your site for example, even before you posted, I was disappointed to see no significant mention of OUR Hive, only the hive network, presumably the storage network, not the blockchain, in that context, and only "name brand" cryptos listed as your preferred methods of crypto payment, but again no mention of Hive.
HiveStreams.Live, literally has it in the name. For all the reasons. But if your syndicates want to create channels which require hive user accounts, we will happily restream their content. Because with the ownership of Hive accounts to login, they are in fact, then Hivians and that's who this platform is for, 100% of the time, 100% of the Hive community.
I am considering storage layers, but not network replacements or an entirely different app. If it came down to a "different app" for storage, I'd just default and still may default to sending to 3Speak, which is very Hive-centric for VoD, and has an API that requires me to change a couple URLs and swap out my codes already ready S3 and Wasabi and StorJ options for their API calls in a couple places.
But I haven't decided that's the right answer yet, its just the most accessible, easiest one handy to stay at pure 100% Hive all the time, out every door and every window, and still retain 100% of the flavor of system I am going foor.
So I mean, there is all that.
If you won't allow your Streamers to syndicate their livestreams and GET DISCOVERED, then you are just contemplating another walled garden, like twitch or youtube.
You say "I don't want to syndicate to other networks". Well...
I know you want to focus on just Hive. I started out that way myself, since 2014 in fact (bitshares then steem then hive). I was one of Hive's biggest cheerleaders; Peerhub used to be called Hive-Tube. "So I mean, there is all that."
However, after chatting with HUNDREDS of Streamers I learned one thing in particular... They want to be discovered. The best way to help them achieve that is to blast their content out there for them in as many places as possible. It's like SEO on steroids.
The world doesn't need more walled gardens. That's been done over and over and look where it's gotten us. Censorship, shadow-bans, demonetization, account blocks, downvotes...
Best of luck to you though, I was just trying to enlighten you and save you a ton of time and money.
I don't need to replay my old rodeo reruns, but this one isn't the first, I'll be aight. My users will be alright.
The only walled garden is the one they don't hold the keys to. Here, they not only hold the keys, they hold every inch of their own paths, pre and post rtmp box thats just a big old party line telephone switch hub anyway for the ins and outs of the peoples and the bits and the bytes they are tossing at each other.
Your thing is 100% all into your pipeline, which is not 100% a hive product. I get it, you've been here a minute, so have I, in various ways and roles and levels, so I get that not everyone has the long tail view on Hive or its longer term viability. They straddle chains, "diversify", jump on a ton of networks. Others steadfastly believe in the things this place has, can and will do. My thing is "Made in Hive" and by Hivians for Hivians, anyone with a Hive account is welcome to participate, it will be built with 100% hive parts and partners like the tipping engine by @bambukah, the key tools from guys I know around the chain, and so on.
Ultimately, That's the audience, and they still have the freedom to blow stuff into your pipeline too, as long as all those sexy big name syndicated downline destinations don't squash their free speech as much as they say they won't, and allow them all to transact securely and freely in about 3 seconds with each other directly without tokens or middle tiers between them, then they just might.
But if that's all they need, I got em.
That's immutable, and if you check out the lengthy manifesto, I tried to use 2000 words to clarify, where I should have done it in three.
#MadeInHive
With all due respect, you're completely ignoring the decentralization component of blockchain technology by forcing "Hive-only."
This approach does not work, period. It's already been tried so many times. It is not possible to scale your userbase SOLELY from Hive. This has been proven for several years now, this is not a new development.
If you truly want to build a new platform and waste time, effort, and money, that is your prerogative, and you are entitled to it.
However, by ignoring existing solutions that WORK, you are purposely delaying the launch of your new platform...
I don't understand your hostility towards people who come from different places...you're purposely segregating your users while claiming to be all for free speech.
You're not solving a problem, you're only trying to re-invent a wheel that has already been created and working for years.
Sorry, but I would not support the waste of Hive resources to build another Walled Garden.
Oh and another thing, I DO know that Hiro mostly delivered pizza for money, but he also lived in a storage unit (relatable as I am transient between countries in an international relocation right now and all my stuff is in storage units) but he also captures intel, information and street news to share and report inside "The Street" platform, for various reasons, including uploading to get paid for it.
So there's that.
In before all the "Akwshually, Hiro was the "Deliverator" pizza guy!" comments. Nerds.
¿Nope? ¿How comes?
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STOPIt is great to see more people building DAPPs on HIVE. There are very few truly decentralized alternatives to social media. The only way to change that is to try and build something. Every project that get added helps to make HIVE stronger. I wish you the Best of Luck onboarding users!
Well thank you. To be very transparent, HiveStreams is not very "decentralized" per se, but then it doesn't really need to be. It doesn't store anything much except whatever you write and put as profile images and info on your channel page, the streams are just using my server as a hub but could be simultaneously sent to any site at the same time, youtube, twitch, FB, twitter, wherever they consume and forward rtmp video feeds, and the logins are all via keychain or hivesigner so I dont store that either.
Its really just a site to connect users to streamers and have a little chat, also not saved except in the chat window for a while, but not in any kind of database, thats done with websockets and a service called "pusher" that just sends the text to everybody and back and forth.
So if my site when down, nothing would be "lost" really, except the convenience of finding and watching hive-centric streamers with hive-centric confirmed names/logins and chatting and watching with other confirmed hive names so you know you are watching and talking to the real hive people per their login on keychain or hivesigner to get into it.
Complicated to explain, but there is nothing to really "decentralize" - even the transfers and money exchanged by tipping or memberships to channels are just pushed to the keychains to validate on the chain and transmit.
So I guess its not only not decentalized, it doesnt even really have a center in the first place haha!
Once we have decentralized storage solutions as a part of HIVE, even the video content can be saved and preserved. All that will be required is a HIVE account. I love the idea of not having a center to begin with. DAPPs as an emergent effect is wonderful thing IMHO.
Since you were talking about cyberpunk and media, I think you will like one of my all time favorite franchises:
So about media on the chain.
I AM exploring various avenues to IPFS and watching the VCS proposal closely... either or both could lead to archival de-cent storage for stream replay VoDs (videos on demand) but for now, Im opting NOT to store live streams for a dozen reasons, and people can still save their own and upload them wherever now, or simulcast to venue that saves them or five of those at a time, with places like restream.io or streamyards services...
Once upon a time myself and another witness back then, sat one night on a discord call and created code between us that literally stored a copy of the star wars movie trailer onto (then steem) blockchain blocks. We were able to store it in chunks of video data in stringified text format, then reassemble and play it by retrieving, ordering and stitching the block content back together.
We also crashed the entire blockchain with that for something like 17 hours till all the witnesses were able to rewind and replay the chain to the point our "bad blocks" hit the chain :) Oops! Our bad! We took some shit for that :D
That is an incredible story. I had no clue that you were part of ones of the outages. This is why it's best to have specialized blockchains for specific tasks.
or test networks, but that was like mid 2017, we barely had a REAL network back then.