
Show HN: Satellite is a forkable, P2P, publicly hosted social platform - lovvtide
https://satellite.earth/
======
mercxry
I signed up and I really like the concept and the ideals behind satellite,
kudos for that!

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!

------
seomint
It's encouraging to see decentralized efforts like this underway. I especially
like the "Daisy Bell" song at the end of one of the promo videos. Great inside
joke.

~~~
iszomer
Is substituting one centralization in place of another really called
"decentralized efforts" now?

1) youtube: google account, sso 2) keybase: identity, proofs minted on the
bitcoin blockchain 3) satellite: identity, signatures minted on ethereum
blockchain

~~~
lovvtide
The difference is that when you create a google account your user info is
stored in a private database. In Satellite, the reasons for going through all
the trouble of storing user IDs on Ethereum are 1) So account creation is
permissionless 2) It's not possible for Satellite or anyone else to delete
your ID and 3) Any application can read the data from the blockchain that
links your name to your key.

Seems pretty decentralized to me. What am I missing?

------
OkGoDoIt
How does one sign up? Maybe I’m missing something since I’m viewing on mobile
but I don’t see any option to register or login or create a new identity or
whatnot.

~~~
pixxel
Desktop. I couldn't see how to sign up on mobile either but I guess it's
because it's a little more complicated than normal account generation; you
will need an ethereum wallet.

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.

~~~
lovvtide
Yes that's correct. User IDs are stored on Ethereum so to sign up you need a
way for your browser to interact with the blockchain. Mobile support for
Ethereum wallets is not quite there yet (but it's getting better!).

Note about the ether faucet: unfortunately it seems that the Ethereum gas
price is very high right now
([https://ethgasstation.info/](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.

~~~
pixxel
Many thanks for the info. Love the site design/build BTW.

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.

~~~
lovvtide
That's a really great point. How did we miss that... thank you!

~~~
pixxel
:)

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.

~~~
lovvtide
I just approved the ether request. Sorry about the delay, we had to switch to
manual approval because too many people were stealing ether!

~~~
pixxel
Many thanks!! Appreciate you.

------
lovvtide
For an explanation of how this works:
[https://satellite.earth/pub/@sbowman:how-satellite-works-
dec...](https://satellite.earth/pub/@sbowman:how-satellite-works-
decentralized-social-assets)

------
Shared404
I don't normally appreciate overly JS/heavy landing pages, but that is my
favourite landing page I've seen in quite a while.

------
sansnomme
Where is the link to the source code?

~~~
lovvtide
We're finishing up the documentation and will be releasing it shortly.

------
kbrannigan
That's the coolest thing I've seen this year.

