If fat protocols are sufficiently general then thin applications can find product market fit by specializing. PopcornTime (backed by BitTorrent) is a great example where it specializes both by content (movies) and mode of consumption (streaming only)pic.twitter.com/AELPAspUc6
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The teams behind successful decentralized file sharing protocols also created the first client. Tons of people end up competing to be the best app on top of a protocol, but the protocol creators need to lead the way for others. Gnutella was a very important flash in the pan.pic.twitter.com/z5Y8wG3Uxj
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Imagine tokenized BitTorrent where clients negotiate token/GB rate for a transfer • Seeding after dl can buy faster future downloads • Incentive to seed long term and contribute bandwidth • Token bounties for desirable content would incentivize sharing content people want
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There is so much more that I think would follow from tokenized file sharing. I'm planning on writing "What if BitTorrent had a token?" soon
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We should split product/market fit in two when talking about decentralized protocols: • Protocol/market fit: is the protocol powerful+general enough to let apps give users a good experience? • App/consumer fit: does the app optimize how the end user wants to use the protocol?
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The fat protocol layer fundamentally restricts what thin apps can provide. Multiple companies building on the app layer experiment with different product visions in parallel. Their learnings can be fed back into protocol improvements.
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The split between fat protocols and thin apps starts as a weakness and becomes a strength. Until a compelling enough app is built, it is a three legged race to coordinate protocol and app changes. After this MVP is found, you see rapid experimentation and competition
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If you enjoyed this thread, my blog post on the topic goes into way more depth: https://medium.com/@jbackus/fat-protocols-arent-new-42d2c538db41 …
I'll share more on p2p parallels for tokenization, decentralization, scaling, and legality in the future. Stay tuned!Show this thread
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70% of Limewire users didn't share ANYTHING. Even more shared nothing of value
Kazaa struggled with fake files and viruses
Whole thread is a valuable read