Showcase: Working on a voice/text chat app in a cyberpunk style
static.mollohq.com
static.mollohq.com
After spending all my money on creating a community platform no-one wanted, in a style that I thought would fit most people (but didn't particularly enjoy myself, too vanilla), I got tired and decided to create something I've wanted in my daily life since I read Neuromancer the first time 20yrs ago.
This is what I'm working on. It's early, like really early, but it's a f*cking JOY to work on and use already! Right now I'm trying to move my friends over from Discord to this, but if there is interest in a voice/text chat app for a broader mass of ppl, I'd love to make a real product out of it and do this for a living!
What ya think? Sushi-style feedback welcome (raw and fresh).
Cheers, b0bben
I hate how much effort goes into app/web design that ends up rearranging the boxes while the whole stuff still looks bland, corporate, mass market, no risk, safe, BORING.
It would spark joy to use an app like this. Definitely not mass market and I mean that as a compliment.
A few rhetorical questions:
* Will this be (similar to discord) centrally hosted/managed? That is, would it be like other chat apps in that there is a central server, and clients connect to/are dependent upon it? Or....will it be more federated (like email, matrix)...or will it be peer-to-peer? (I'm sure the more centralized, likely the easier for you to implement, but i figured i'd ask...since i tend to favor less centralized options...but that's just me.)
* If you go the route of open sourcing this, and possibly even enabling self-hosting...have you considered what techstack would be used, such that, it might be easier for folks to spin up their own, and hence you might get more participation from folks who more likely might be into this kind of approach (and cyberpunk aeshetic)? (I know docker, containers are a thing nowadays and may in many cases the techstack becomes less important and often eases the self-hosting burden, but, figured i'd ask.)
I should clarify: NONE of my questions are demands...This is your baby, and you should build it as YOU WISH! My questions are merely rhetorical, and you don't even need to respond to...merely giving you some food for thought. I love me some cyberpunk, and not only aesthetic, but especially the freedoms and approach to libre-centric "lifestyle"...so a cool-looking chat app like what your video showed would pair well with folks who think about at least some of the things i asked about above. ;-)
Anyway, cheers to you on this app, and keep on building it; looks great!!!!!
to your (awesome) questions: right now it's centrally managed. it's just easier to build this way and use existing services. i use own apis, firebase and livekit.
at some point i'd LOVE to work on this full-time and live off of it, that's my end-goal.
everything is doable, but it would/will take work, but i wouldn't mind creating a self-hosted version for the 4 of you that really really want that ;)
Yeah, totally makes sense, centralized is easier. no hamr, no foul. :-)
> ...i'd LOVE to work on this full-time and live off of it, that's my end-goal.
Well, if/when you launch this, I'd be interested in paying you to manage the hosting of it. so, you jhave at least 1 willing potential customer!
> ... i wouldn't mind creating a self-hosted version...
Remember, how i want a self-hosted option? That still is true...but i likely would prefer to pay YOU to manage the hosting. In other words, I gladly pay devs/teams/orgs to manage hosted apps for me...but I always LIKE that they offer me a choicee to self-host something if/whenever I choose. Basically, if a company gives me the opportunity to leave them at any time...that in a way earns my trust, and that helps me want to pay them for their service...assuming their service is reliable, well-managed of course. So, yeah, self-hosted is the gold standard to live up to...but, don;t get it twisted: if you build in self-hosting AS WELL AS offer paid plans, i will def. pay you! Remember that, because there are TONS of people like me, who on principle want open source, self-hosted options, but who will gladly PAY for someone to manage said open source apps/services.
Again, cheers and kudos!
(not mine, just something i found and use a lot for inspo)
haha, you're onto me with material design (which I really dislike), because it's built into Flutter, which I'm using for this, in a lot of places. BIGCORPO is onto us ;)
My inner edgelord teenager approves of the style though.
thx for commenting, appreciate it <3
(macos is signed, windows is not, waiting for MS to approve me for certificates, dont download unsigned binaries from internet strangers...i'm nice tho)
pepp: swedish word to "encourage, hype up"
With the style of the app, that would fit very well into it.