I’d like to dive a bit more in this subject as I see a lot of potential for layering Safe on top of the public internet in ways that could make a real difference, right now, for a great amount of people.
I talked previously about the concept of Sidetalk, an app that allows anyone to have a conversation linked to any url or XOR addresses. While it is possible to do this kind of app as a native app, it would be much more practical to have it as a browser extension. You navigate on the public internet, or on Safe, the extension’s icon lights up when it detects an ongoing conversation for the current address, you press it and a new tabs opens up on a safenet site where you can take part of the conversation. Sanitize all users input to render ineffective any link to the public internet inside Sidetalk and, as far as I understand, users privacy and security is maintained.
Another example, SafeGraffiti. A browser extension that allows you to paint over any website (public or Safe) and share it with the world. Again, the extension checks as you browse the net if these graffiti exist, if they do, the icon lights up, you press it and the extension overlays the graffiti over the website. Again, privacy and security is maintained as the data from the user are just drawings with coordinates.
These kind of apps are almost impossible to do right now, Safe opens up a whole new domain of possibilities at the finger tips of every developer with any kind of budget. This has the potential to make real changes.
Two more: allow any shop on the public internet to accept Safecoins as a payment, or even, allow any website to authenticate its user with their Safe id, etc.
From an adoption point of view this also allows us to leverage the immense quantity of content available on the public web to create experiences that are unique to Safe. It also helps a lot with the chicken and egg problem we’ll have without it. Attracting more people to the network increases security for everyone and makes the network that much more robust.
I understand this subject will be polarizing and I’d like to hear other thoughts on it. Worth it or not?
Full disclaimer: I’m biased as I work on a simple extension that allows you to write personal notes linked to an url. It’s nothing fancy and pretty harmless, it won’t overthrow any government. But compared to other similar extensions, you own your data which is a big step in the right direction. It could work only for Safe but to allow it to work on the public internet makes it just much more useful.
I can think of other simple example like an extension to store your bookmarks. Again it’s pretty harmless but it allows you to subtract yourself from all other commercial cloud services.
Anyway, thoughts?