Post by StudioWhy in Introducing WhyCloud - Create Fearlessly! comments

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Thank you for the detailed feedback!

We agree that those three areas are "larger" problems but, in our opinion, a sustainable solution to them all necessitates that people stop relying on centralized hubs. Here's how WhyCloud aims to tackle each of those outlined problems:

1. Ethical and Sustainable Age Verification

We are against the idea of age verification but, since it is legally mandated in many places, any implemented AV solution should be free, open-source, and most-importantly client-based so that the information never leaves the user's machine. Thankfully, such a solution already exists with: go.cam

This is valid in both the UK and the EU. The US laws largely depend on individual lawsuits, so if it works in practice most creators should be decently protected.

WhyCloud can help configure a creator's site to implement this form of privacy-friendly AV and, in cases where creators are told that this is still not enough, we can configure their site to block those regions if the creator so desires.

With centralized solutions, they may pay the cost but that is simply more incentive to prohibit adult content entirely. The creator also has no choice over what form of age-verification they want to implement.

2. The Discovery Hub

We agree that discovery is the reason that creators stick to centralized solutions. Unfortunately, due the fact that they accept payments, these solutions are inherently susceptible to pressure from payment processers/card networks. Either the marketplace doesn't let people get paid or it gets censored. Even if Steam tried to route payments to adult games through crypto-only, payment processers are known to not care. High-risk content needs to be on a completely separate site, like with SubscribeStar.

With our Discovery Hub, there will be a primary instance that we run and moderate (to keep out malware, etc.). Any site with the appropriate plugin (which WhyCloud can install and configure automatically) can register itself with any Discovery Hub instances, such as ours.

When Users visit the Discovery Hub, they will be able to search and browse tagged content, create lists of favorites, see recommended content, and purchase content just like any other storefront. However, the purchases are in actuality routed through the individual creator's site behind the scenes. This way it is impossible for payment processers to pressure us to remove content, but at the same time it necessitates that people are hosting and processing payments themselves.

As a result, our Discovery Hub solves both the issue of discovery as well as being able to let users buy things, the federation is just the cherry on top.

The federation allows anyone to host their own hub, and users will see aggregated search results based on whatever hubs they subscribe to. It's much more similar to Bluesky in this regard, where most people will use the main hub but the option to use your own Personal Data Server is there.

3. Choice in Processing

We agree that this is the hardest problem to tackle but also believe that the actual problem comes down to fact that creators do not have any choice in the matter.

Do they want to:
1. Use PayPal/Stripe and barely conform to their policies or try to "slide under the radar" for as long as possible?
2. Sign up with a high-risk processer and have less content restrictions but need to pay large fees to Visa/Mastercard?
3. Accept payments through regional bank-to-bank methods such as Automated Clearing House, but accept that these are regional?
4. Accept payments through crypto, which is the most censorship resistant but also has a horrible stigma attached to it.

Currently, creators are forced into Option 1 most of the time. Option 2 is sometimes available, such as with SubscribeStar, but as you likely know even they are facing pressure.

Still, integrating sites with SubscribeStar will be a good option for a lot of creators. For others at least the last two options are still available to them if they host their own site.

Also, you mentioned it being easy to pay for a basic site that allows adult content, which is true, but it also locks non-technical creators into using that web-host (and also likely overpaying). WhyCloud makes it easy for creators to switch hosts if they so choose.

You seem like you know a lot about the issue and also care strongly about finding solutions. You should join our Discord if you want to talk more about potential solutions.

bitshiftgames1 year ago(+1)

Thank you for taking the time to give a thorough reply. Some thoughts:

Go.cam is an interesting idea, although I'm still skeptical:

1. That it performs as described

2. That people will be willing to provide said information, regardless of what the code actually does and

3. That it will satisfy the patchwork of state requirements in the US.

Still, it does sound like the least bad way of doing this I've seen so far, so fair enough. I'll keep an eye on it. The fact that it is a lightweight and cost-free solution is also extremely useful if it turns out to be acceptable.

I'm glad the Discovery Hub has been given a considerable amount of thought, as evidenced by the amount of detail you're able to give. That said, my core criticism remains: having multiple federated instances can't help but fragment the community, just like Mastodon. There are Mastodon instances that do alright for themselves, largely because they're run as extensions of other, larger services, in the way web pages used to have oldschool forums back in the day. But those are each little isolated worlds unto themselves. In general having multiple instances creates distracting competition and dilutes an already fairly small audience across multiple sites. If it's like bluesky, hey, great, but the weird little fiefdom design of bluesky a. did nothing to prevent centralized control in the end and b. did a lot to confuse and frustrate users. Kind of the worst of both worlds.

Using the Hub as an obfuscation layer for payment processing doesn't really do much either. Fundamentally, it's still on the users to figure out payment processing. Now, if payment isn't in your scope and you primarily just want to create a somewhat centralized discovery and hosting platform, fair enough. But there doesn't seem to be a good reason to do some kind of payment passthrough on your end, as far as I can tell. You aren't going to bamboozle Payment Processors.

As for Discord, I'll have to politely decline. Discord servers are not, to my knowledge, searchable, certainly not from google (and attempts to make them so have been fiercely shut down). Your server could get hacked tomorrow, and then all the discussion there will be lost forever, and rendered useless for purposes of future reference. In contrast, unless Itch shutters or bans you, this discussion will remain easily linkable, searchable and reference-able. The modern internet is far too ephemeral, even for an electronic communication network. There are forums from two decades ago, long put into archive mode, that are still yielding useful information to people today. I don't want to contribute to linkrot.

All that said, I hope you're successful in providing a useful service in the end, at least to some people. I'm just not sure I see it fitting in to what I need, or most creators that I know need. But at the very least, now more than ever, we need to be sharing information on the inner workings of this stuff as we work to stay alive and functioning. I'll definitely keep an eye on Go.cam for example.

Best of luck, and I'll keep an eye out for the project as things progress.

itch.io

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