merryoscar on Nostr: It's sad to see someone describing a podcast app as corrupt bullshit. Fountain is ...
It's sad to see someone describing a podcast app as corrupt bullshit.
Fountain is currently closed source which is a fair criticism. I am considering deeply whether to open source the app and will provide an update on this decision soon. Despite the sometimes loud voices on this issue - the far majority of people that use the app don't mind this. There are also great open-source alternatives like Breez and Podverse. But anyway stay tuned on this...
To address the other points:
- "not powered by the bitcoin lightning network" - I think this is obviously false - although the wallet is custodial we enable paying podcasters that run their own nodes so the payments run on the open lightning network. We're also planning to add support for NWC so you can bring your own wallet to the app.
- "hosted on amazon / aws" - we do use aws for some of our services - I don't see why this is an issue?
- "zero censorship resistance / regular files" - my view is that open podcasting built on rss is sufficiently decentralised because podcasters can always switch hosts, and even self-host their rss feed. Apps like Fountain let you add a private rss feed. Whilst there may be more decentralised technologies than rss - that is not what we are trying to achieve with Fountain - we are trying to help podcasters get paid for their work without relying on advertising and using the value signal of these payments to provide discovery of great content.
- "insert nsec into closed source" - we support NIP-55 android remote signer which works great today with apps like Amber. On iOS there is currently no good NIP-46 mobile remote signer. Will from Damus said he's going to make Damus a NIP-46 signer and as soon as he does we will integrate this.
- "heavy integration with big tech" - I'm not sure exactly what this is referring to but if it's the use of services like aws personally I don't think that is an issue - pretty much every website / app you use on the internet will use these services.
- "surveillance of who's listening" - the only place your listen history is stored is in your personal library so that you can see which episodes you've played and resume them from the previous position. Every other podcast app works this way and when you delete items from your library all data is deleted.
- "leeching bitcoin fees from podcasters" - I don't think there's anything wrong with charging a fee for providing a service. Our fees are lower than all other traditional platforms and are only 1% if you have fountain premium. The podcasters have their lightning node keysend addresses in the rss feeds - so if you want to pay them directly without a fee you can run your own node and send them keysend payments. Fountain just makes this way easier and lets you pay from the player or episode screen.
I am open to any and all feedback and hopefully my response here is useful.
Fountain is currently closed source which is a fair criticism. I am considering deeply whether to open source the app and will provide an update on this decision soon. Despite the sometimes loud voices on this issue - the far majority of people that use the app don't mind this. There are also great open-source alternatives like Breez and Podverse. But anyway stay tuned on this...
To address the other points:
- "not powered by the bitcoin lightning network" - I think this is obviously false - although the wallet is custodial we enable paying podcasters that run their own nodes so the payments run on the open lightning network. We're also planning to add support for NWC so you can bring your own wallet to the app.
- "hosted on amazon / aws" - we do use aws for some of our services - I don't see why this is an issue?
- "zero censorship resistance / regular files" - my view is that open podcasting built on rss is sufficiently decentralised because podcasters can always switch hosts, and even self-host their rss feed. Apps like Fountain let you add a private rss feed. Whilst there may be more decentralised technologies than rss - that is not what we are trying to achieve with Fountain - we are trying to help podcasters get paid for their work without relying on advertising and using the value signal of these payments to provide discovery of great content.
- "insert nsec into closed source" - we support NIP-55 android remote signer which works great today with apps like Amber. On iOS there is currently no good NIP-46 mobile remote signer. Will from Damus said he's going to make Damus a NIP-46 signer and as soon as he does we will integrate this.
- "heavy integration with big tech" - I'm not sure exactly what this is referring to but if it's the use of services like aws personally I don't think that is an issue - pretty much every website / app you use on the internet will use these services.
- "surveillance of who's listening" - the only place your listen history is stored is in your personal library so that you can see which episodes you've played and resume them from the previous position. Every other podcast app works this way and when you delete items from your library all data is deleted.
- "leeching bitcoin fees from podcasters" - I don't think there's anything wrong with charging a fee for providing a service. Our fees are lower than all other traditional platforms and are only 1% if you have fountain premium. The podcasters have their lightning node keysend addresses in the rss feeds - so if you want to pay them directly without a fee you can run your own node and send them keysend payments. Fountain just makes this way easier and lets you pay from the player or episode screen.
I am open to any and all feedback and hopefully my response here is useful.