At @spritely we're building the future of decentralized networking tech (social networks and otherwise)!

[cwebber@social.coop]

We need to change the game so that it's *easy* to run decentralized tech that doesn't just scale up, it scales down.

We need decentralized tech that's easy to build and reason about.

We need tech that's safe.

And we need tech that's cooperative.

[cwebber@social.coop]

I don't know about you, but there's a lot about the world today that worries me. I don't think building decentralized versions of Web 2.0 era social networks is going to get us there.

We need tech that's secure, that's robust.

We need tech that's *participatory*.

We need tech for you and me.

[fleeky@prsm.space]

@cwebber is there any plans to get spritely support into godot?

[cwebber@social.coop]

One of the things I'm most proud of about the fediverse is that it owes its success to a lot of queer people working on it. This lead to the fediverse being very queer itself. I'm proud of that.

Maybe it's weird to say, but that seems to be happening again with Spritely.

[what@chaosfem.tw]

@cwebber I read this thread and a bunch of other stuff you’ve posted here and on your website, and I still don’t quite get it. Is there any ELI5 version anywhere that you can point me to? I have a technical background, and I still can’t grok what it is you all are doing here. It sounds cool, which is why I keep trying to understand!

[cwebber@social.coop]

But again, I just don't think decentralized social networks aiming to replicate web 2.0 are what we primarily need to meet the challenges ahead.

I worry about activism on such platforms today not being robust enough.

We need platforms which meet the needs of individuals, communities, activists.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Which starts to get into serious business territory when you throw "activism" and "human rights" out there but then on the other hand I'm showing you video game screenshots? What on earth is going on?

Well, aside from being great demos, I think we need fun and whimsy. It's gotten us this far.

[cwebber@social.coop]

It's easy to forget that social networks have owed their success more than anything to people *enjoying being on them*.

I think sometimes people say "we need to focus on serious things" and it's easy to accidentally make the story sterile.

We aren't going to make it if we don't have a fun time.

[cwebber@social.coop]

There's more to say, and I plan on taking a deep dive into our tech, piece by piece, over the days ahead. There's a lot to unpack!

But in the meanwhile, let's get back to the campaign. A call to action. The reason this thread is here.

[cwebber@social.coop]

I'm asking for your support, for you (yes you!) to help out @spritely, however you can.

We are a small nonprofit. We can't do this without your support.

Please help donate for the future of the internet. Thank you.

Support Spritely! — Spritely Institute

(spritely.institute)

[wgahnagl@www.librepunk.club]

@cwebber @spritely AAAAUGH YOU'RE SO COOL I LOVE YOU SPRITELY

[krozruch@kolektiva.social]

@cwebber I have been looking into #IPFS and #Iroh recently and, from the white paper I found on looking into Goblins, I came across references to IPFS, Tahoe-LAFS, ERIS, but couldn't figure if this P2P layer was already integrated somehow or if this is where Goblins is headed... It all sounds interesting but I haven't got my head around it yet.

[matt@toot.cafe]

@cwebber Will these browser-based applications ultimately use HTML for the UI, or will they run a new UI toolkit in a canvas like the video game demos? That's the one thing that makes me worry about the call for new foundations; the existing web platform is already pretty good for accessibility, in particular. Of course, there's a way to make canvas-based UI more or less accessible, by constructing a parallel DOM. But it's tricky.

[dthompson@toot.cat]

@matt @cwebber they will use your standard HTML elements. canvas just made sense for a sprite-based game. here's a blog post from last year where we show how to use some of the DOM API with Hoot https://spritely.institute/news/building-interactive-web-pages-with-guile-hoot.html

[eamon@social.coop]

@cwebber this is the second time I've seen you express this "tech that doesn't just scale up, it scales down" idea (the first was in your megathread about Bluesky), and I just wanna say that it is such a catchy slogan that really gets at the heart of what we need. Thanks for doing all this brilliant work!

[dthompson@toot.cat]

@what @cwebber let me know if this helps: we're trying to do for p2p, decentralized apps what things like rails and django did for web 2.0 apps. that is: we want to give you a technology stack that lets you focus on the business logic of your app and have the output be both secure and decentralized.

[phantasus@social.tchncs.de]

@cwebber And people normally run whimsical things on "serious" stuff. One needs not to forget that Smalltalk, the inspiration for modern desktops, GUIs, IDEs had exactly that kind of "silliness" when the people back then where thinking about how children could use these things to create programs.

This playfulness is something which is lacking currently in "frameworks", libraries, etc. all very boring strictly typed nonsense where no REPL can be found.

[cwebber@social.coop]

@wgahnagl @spritely

[cwebber@social.coop]

@krozruch The storage layer is not integrated or settled on yet, but we have plans to resume working on that layer's integration in 2025!

[cwebber@social.coop]

@eamon