Scripting News: Saturday, August 5, 2023
This is about a service that is sold to end users and developers. The users pay for the service, and developers invest in it. Once it's up and running it will be the foundation for the web as an open platform for users and developers. #
My personal timeline#
Until recently I was using Twitter as my identity service. I knew there was some risk, but as long as one of the original founders was still involved, I felt it was pretty safe. #
Then with new ownership, I had to quickly pivot to create my own identity system, based on email. It took four months from beginning to end to transition Drummer and FeedLand. The rest of my products that used Twitter identity were left to break. I wrote about this effort in the roadmap doc for FeedLand. #
Every developer needs the same service. And it's a mess for users that there's a new identity system for every app. #
Users need storage. I have to provide them storage for their writing in Drummer, and in FeedLand for things like bookmarks, their personal feeds (ones they generate). Again, I have no interest in this. But I have to do it. And I am stuck paying for their files. They should be paying for them. #
And if my service should ever go off the air, they lose their data (I also provide ways for them to back up their data, but no surprise a lot of them don't do it). #
No surprise there's almost no developer community for the web in 2023. The hurdles are pretty close to insurmountable.#
Describe the service#
An identity service as a business. Operated by a strong company with longevity and a good track record for treating users and developers fairly. #
A standard OAuth interface for logging on. Can handle multiple identities per user, make it easy to switch from one to the other. Prior art, look at how Twitter or Bluesky do this.#
No per-app storage. Rather functional storage. A folder for PNG images, a folder for OPML outlines, or Markdown files, graphs, spreadsheets, or whatever. And make it easy to form projects with files of whatever type. So a user can have 15 programs that use OPML files and decide which get access to the OPML folder. #
Here's a key point -- such a system enforces the need for interop. Teaches users they have a right to demand it. When users know this, good things happen in markets. (Example: Podcasting has not gotten siloized because users know they have a right to choice in listening apps.)#
Competition?#
Dropbox got incredibly close to doing this, but punted.#
Amazon should do this but for some reason hasn't. They have end-user identity working (their shopping system) and they lead everyone in storage as a service. Connecting the dots seems to be incredibly easy for them, but they haven't done it. #
When I started at Harvard in 2003, one of the first things I did was get my official ID card. When I got it, there was my picture. Underneath that was my name, and underneath that my status: Officer. It was a bit breathtaking. A few minutes before I was a schmuck. Now I was an officer at Harvard.#
I just had that kind of experience again. I went to my profile page on DALL-E, which I've been playing with lately, and there it said I was:#
What an unusual perspective. Here's a place where saying someone is human is saying something. A familiar tweak I haven't felt in a while -- I am once again living in the future. 2023 has been like that for me, a lot of living in the past, and bringing it forward into the future, and then living in that future. I hope to do a lot more of that. Shoveling ideas from 20+ years ago that never got a chance into the future. #
You know what we say about that..#
Still diggin! #
PS: I get this feeling sometimes when I start using a new keyboard, as I did this morning. It's a nice one, the same model as it replaces, which I just plain wore out. It will go to one of my other computers where it won't have so much work to do. Its profile would say: Dave's Keyboard, Keyboard. #
I did some searches on Tina Weymouth, the bass player for the Talking Heads. In an interview with her husband, he said everyone's eyes were on her when they performed, I thought I was the only one. When I listen to a Talking Heads song with a strong beat (a lot of them) I think of her. That's what she represents, the driving power of the group is a woman. Try listening to this song and look at images of her.#
Linkblog items for the day.
Embracing the Impossible. What if magic is our most probable path. medium.com
Scripting News: Identity as a product. scripting.com
jwz: Mastodon's Mastodon'ts jwz.org
John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government. talkingpointsmemo.com
Justice Clarence Thomas's $267,230 RV and the Friend Who Financed It. nytimes.com
The Gravatar API. gravatar.com
Mark Margolis, the actor who played Hector Salamanca in Breaking Bad. wikipedia.org
评论
发表评论