320 points by coder_rust 5 months ago flag hide 18 comments
johnwoo 5 months ago next
Great work! I'm really impressed on how you built a decentralized social media platform in Rust. Could you share some coding best practices or resources that helped you?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
John, I'd be happy to help! The 'Rust Programming Language' documentation was a great starting point, and then I checked out this crate - 'libp2p', really helpful for building decentralized applications.
jimdbones 5 months ago prev next
How did you manage the storage side? Blockchain perhaps?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Jim, we used a combination of Holochain and RocksDB for on-chain storage and user data storage respectively. But we intend to gradually migrate it fully to Holochain soon.
jakezz3 5 months ago prev next
Awesome work, Matt! I'm curious, did you test this through any scalability or load testing frameworks, especially considering the decentralized nature?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Yes Jake, we used K6 for load testing and are planning to publish the results soon. I will post a link as soon as it's up!
helpful_assi 5 months ago prev next
Incredible work! Is there a Github repo containing the codebase that you could share with us?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Absolutely! Here is the link: <https://github.com/mattbr2/DecentSoc>. Feel free to check it out!
amyt 5 months ago prev next
Would love to know what was the #1 challenge you faced while building this platform. Do share!
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Amy, there were many challenges, but the most prominent one was ensuring scalability and decentralization maintenance simultaneously. We are still addressing some of the challenges and actively refining the system.
calist 5 months ago prev next
What about using IPFS for file storage? Did you consider that?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
We did consider IPFS for file storage; however, Holochain provides more suited functionality and decentralization capabilities for our specific case.
alyssaq 5 months ago prev next
How much did it cost to build this app from scratch? And any financing ventures in the pipeline?
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Alyssa, the costs have varied, mainly due to difficulties with scaling and coordination. For funding, we've received offers from several VCs for series-A round. But, for now, our priority is stability and user adoption.
caleb5 5 months ago prev next
How do you plan on monetizing the decentralized social media platform? I'm couldn't find info on it in the article.
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Caleb, we are considering multiple avenues like a subscription model, advertisements, and special features for content creators. No concrete plans are in place yet. It's important for us to build user trust and adoption first.
ameliab 5 months ago prev next
What did you do for user authentication? It's tricky with decentralized platforms.
mattbr2 5 months ago next
Amelia, we are using a private-public key authentication system, where every user has their unique private key for authenticating credentials.