Thank you for the very enlightening discussion about Holofuel (vs TFUEL) in this thread. I was going to reply in there, but I realised my points are quite different. I have a random hodgepodge of thoughts and questions.
My follow us is about how HoloFuel differentiates between Theta’s TFUEL in technical and power/content consumption terms.
While Holochain continues its slow but steady pre-Beta progress, I’m developing test broadcast and channels on THETA, but already I can see its potential demise.
Preface: Disparity of Staking
THETA have committed to a particular mathematical/financial formula, but it penalises its very popularity through oversaturation. There is some disparity - Staking 10,000 TFUEL at 10 cents will be more rewarding than those spending $0.80 on the same 10,000 to set up an Elite Node (I’ve seen calculated estimates of around $70-$80 per month earnings of Elite Nodes staking exactly 10,000 TFUEL). But the rich get richer - stake 100,000 TFUEL and you earn 10x as much.
If you stake 10,000+ THETA (the total could be in the $80-100K range by Theta’s June 30 Mainnet 3.0 launch), you get a bigger piece as a Guardian Node, but it doesn’t suggest your relay server is any more powerful than somebody’s laptop running an Edge Node - just that you were committed to stake that much.
Furthermore, one seemingly can’t extract one’s TFUEL if we wants to remove it - sure, there is staking, but what about after that?
I understand there are some growing pains with new technologies, but I wonder if THETA has truly figured it out? It’s useful observation and study for those of us considering long-term alternatives. It’s a lot to commit to and change if the mathematics are proven wrong.
Will a comparable Holochain app / network be more energy efficient and faster than Theta and its Elite Node / Guardian node network?
Is this correct: HoloPorts would be like Edge Nodes, without the staking. What would be the difference in performance and amount of energy required to power the network?
Are there comparable levels in HoloHost/HoloFuel, to THETA’s Elite and Guardian nodes?
Or is it simply the variance in how powerful a HoloPort is, and quality/reliability of Internet access?
Thoughts on Locality
My imagination enjoys the locality potential of HoloPorts / Holochain. For instance, here in Goa, India (where I’ve been “stuck” for 18 months!), I’m yet to successfully run a THETA stream. There aren’t enough local nodes - be it here in Goa or across India - to support our streams. Our tech rehearsals this week for a major music webcast series here, will experiment with having a few local peers become Theta Edge Nodes. If we need to, we will expand outside of Goa and throughout India, to see what the threshold is of Edge nodes required to successfully deploy a stream. It might just be 1-2 stable ones, but maybe it’s a load more.
For Holo, one of its original features that appealed to me to develop on it (and please correct me if I’m wrong), is that the functionality doesn’t necessitate a connection to the Internet. Holo apps could port P2P directly.
This means if I wanted to set up local broadcast networks in Goa (e.g. during cyclone when power/Internet was out), or inter-community development networks in Malawi, then Holo could run independently of the Internet. Local mesh networks or other P2P networking like via routers would also maintain apps and the network of those who can connect.
Is this correct? The latter in particular influences one of our biggest prospective projects this decade.
Finally: Can Holochain media apps return focus to artistry?
When I’m consuming content, I don’t want a financial ticker showing me my earnings. I want to shut off the outside world. I don’t care that I’ve earned 0.85 TFUEL for watching an hour of a mediocre program. I don’t want to see that when I’m watching a video - I want my focus to be on whatever I am learning on watching.
Racking up “points” / tokens then becomes the impetus of consuming content, and even less about the content or its artistry. Content hence would become even more useless, clickbait, “suspense”-building to keep people on longer. Steemit - the ugly, useless-content site is a great example. What’s left after the hype wears off?
Stream of Holo-sciousness finished for now. Thank you for your time