Show HN: Satellite is a forkable, P2P, publicly hosted social platform
satellite.earth
satellite.earth
But here some of my opinions to improve the experience:
The sign-up should say the minimum amount of ETH required to create an account, I wanted to test the process of getting it from the platform so I used the "Need ETH? We got you covered" button and it worked without a problem.
There are some tiny problem with the UI, for example the font color for some parts of the UI blends in with the background and makes it really difficult to read it, for example: usernames on comments, the network activity (navbar, left of "Media"), titles and icons on the left menu bar on profiles ("Public Earth ID" and "Satellite Data"), bio on profiles, etc...
The landing page looks beautiful, but sometimes it freezes my browser for a second, since it is heavy js, but that might be my fault because of my 200+ tabs open.
I am really curious on how Satellite will expand and scale with more users, especially the constellation page, and once again congrats, you are building the future of web!
1) youtube: google account, sso 2) keybase: identity, proofs minted on the bitcoin blockchain 3) satellite: identity, signatures minted on ethereum blockchain
Seems pretty decentralized to me. What am I missing?
I followed the simple instructions and installed the MetaMask ext. for FireFox. Gave them an email address (I used a throw away account) and they will deposit a little ethereum so you can sign up. Very simple but there are steps that's better completed at your desk.
Note about the ether faucet: unfortunately it seems that the Ethereum gas price is very high right now (https://ethgasstation.info/) The server is programmed to provide 0.008 ETH, which under normal conditions is enough for the tx fee, but due to the high gas price you might encounter an "insufficient balance" message when confirming the transaction to create your ID. If that happens, please wait a little while until the gas price comes down a bit and try again.
I should add that using Satellite only requires writing data to the blockchain when you signup. Once your ID exists you can use it to sign things that you post, and that doesn't cost anything.
I'm curious, what did you use for automatic seeding? Are you using an array of addresses to seed many people at once, or just sending from one and waiting for the nonce to increment when tx confirms? I know you said you're doing manual now because people were messing with it, but I'm wondering what you consider a 'scalable' tx distribution setup for seeding.
May I suggest advising mobile users to use a desktop to sign up, if you are going to continue to hide the sign up from mobile users. The barrier to entry is high enough with the ethereum coupling, frustrating mobile users could be somewhat mitigated with a message. Cheers.
BTW, 2 hours ago I recevied the initial email from Satellite to add ETH to my wallet. I clicked the link and confirmed. The message said it would be a few minutes until I receive ETH (I forget the exact message). Is a few hours to be expected? I've checked my spam folder.