Have you ever read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?
As a life long software developer with over 35 years of experience and a lifelong sci-fi enthusiast for even longer than that, I’ve always been drawn to the futuristic worlds illustrated in print in science fiction novels. Some guys like Cowboy Westerns, some guys like Tom Clancy action, others like business books or whatever. I liked books like Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
Why is this relevant right now? Why are you yammering on about a book you read when your daughter was less than one year old and still in the year of her birth in 1992, 31 years ago?
(Shit, thirty one YEARS ago? Anyway... moving on)
One character that left a lasting impression on me from Snow Crash is Hiro Protagonist. Hiro’s day job, as a street reporter in the dystopian, yet hyper-futuristic real world outside the "Street", the globally available virtual reality most people spend their lives logged in to, a world very similar to the one in the book and movie, "Ready Player One" is a remarkable reflection of the modern independent media landscape we see emerging today. His job as a VR live streamer, capturing the raw essence of real-world events for a global audience, resonated with me deeply.
Obviously, we have had Twitch, and YouTube and TikTok and Facebook and X/Twitter and other outlets that have come and gone, and we still await the virtual reality world that people actually want to wear strapped to their heads all day, but they have mostly been stale, commercialized, corporate offerings where, if you aren't being served meat at the table, you are the meat being served at the table.
In Snow Crash, Hiro’s reporting is not just about delivering news from his area with a VR connected live cam in real time, but about immersing the audience in the gritty realities of a world that’s both starkly dystopian and technologically advanced. He excels at this, and enjoys this kind of media production.
This concept of blending real-world experiences with digital media was a serious source of inspiration for me early in my tech career. It lead to me making a system exactly LIKE YouTube about 2 years before YouTube was launched, only mine was called "StreamRoller.net" but it was the same thing. And you all know I've built streaming networks here before as well on the chain back in years past and hard forks gone by.
But the idea of The Street. Of a world full of VR sword wielding, intense hacker-skill having, webcam toting bad asses never left my mind. If only there was a way to spread media without the corporate overlords. Sure, you can't stream live violence or certain other taboo and illegal things, but overall, media should be something anyone can make and push out or take and consume as they wish, sort of like food or drugs or anything else that becomes solely a personal decision to partake in or avoid.
So I stumbled into this post today by a fairly brand new Hivian whom I've already come to enjoy chatting with and know there will be some meat on the bones when reading what he posts. He's sort of a Hiro Protagonist type himself. Here's the post that lead to me ending up writing this one you are reading now:
@peaceandmoney dives into the state of main stream media in the UK, but it is globally good reading and he's a smart feller with insights and wisdom to share in a well written and readable way.
https://peakd.com/ocd/@peaceandmoney/the-corruption-of-the-british-television-industry
All of this made me think about stuff all day after I read that, and I had some conversations throughout the day that amplified it and it all planted the seed for this philosophical post about my current project: HiveStreams.Live.
Till now, my posts about HiveStreams.Live have been about the software. Hey the site is up! Hey I added tipping with HBD/Hive & Tokens! Hey I am close to finishing channel member fan systems, hey both the main Hive login tools work now, and so on.
But I have only discussed my actual intentions, my philosophy for this build, my aspiration and my desire and my MISSION for this project in one on ones with friends and interested passers by so far.
And so, now that many of you have seen and joined the site, I want you all to know:
HiveStreams.Live is designed to embody the very essence of Hiro Protagonist’s work and the spirit of the novel Snow Crash. It’s a live streaming platform built on a cryptocurrency blockchain, intended to bridge the gap between raw, creative, authentic, passionately crafted content made by humans living in a gritty modern landscape and using cutting-edge technologies for globally utilitarian, privately exchangeable crypto currencies, personal media distribution and unfiltered media consumption.
Much like Hiro’s street reporting, HiveStreams.Live aims to empower independent creators around this big, old, wet and dirty rock we all share our air on, and try to live together on, called Earth. I am looking at you, media makers who are not bound by traditional corporate media constraints - to share your stories, ideas, philosophies, outlooks, music, artwork, films, crafts, lessons, questions, discussions and news and any and every other kind of creative work, directly with a waiting, global audience starving for authentic sources to inform or entertain or educate them amidst a desolate landscape of corporatized trash media and inauthentic experiences. Yeah, we're all gonna watch the The Real Housewives of more like no where ever, ever again, but anyway...
By itself, not a brand new concept or anything, but it's harder to find than you think. Sure, there are the "Rumbles" of the world, decreeing themselves "free speech" platforms, but still oddly leaning one way or the other and mostly just about the usual USA political bullshit, and weak on the creative inputs and authenticity and certainly lacking the kind of community Hive fosters both at large eco-system wide, and also in its many vast sub-communities and the upcoming breakout communities as well.
But how many of these other big corporate media platforms come with their own untraceable currencies to use between audiences and creators instantly, grant login with blockchain authenticity to know for sure who you are watching or chatting with in stream chat is really that same person from the chain whom you can transact with directly and safely? And most importantly, generally anonymously if desired.
And how many such platforms come with their own vast audience of users already there and waiting for new ways to consume content from their favorite creators and platform personalities?
And how many did you have the chance to get on and participate in when they still had less than three paginated pages of users signed up and were only four days old as a publicly available application so far? That one's just for early adopter bragging rights, thank me when you're one of the "OG"s able to say "Yeah I've been on the HiveStreams for 7 or 8 years now" to some fresh minnow of the future?
In today’s world, where citizen journalism and independent media creators are more important than ever, creators who are driven and chosen and made to succeed or fail by truly free market media consumers, the same consumers who are choosing to choose what they consume and who are ditching the agenda driven, always on-message politically charged "television", in this new world, platforms like HiveStreams.Live are becoming increasingly important,
HiveStreams.Live seeks to offer a space where authenticity, creativity and independent thinking and freedom of participation can survive first, and continue to thrive into the future without the filters of mainstream media or organizational or corporate overlords holding the keys to admission onto the stage or the doors into the auditorium to watch the show.
The philosophy behind HiveStreams.Live is to create a digital space where the spirit of Hiro Protagonist’s VR adventures lives on. It’s about enabling individuals to contribute their voices and perspectives to a larger, global conversation, much like Hiro did in his dystopian reality. In doing so, I hope to inspire a new generation of creators to explore the intersection of technology and media, just as I was inspired by Hiro Protagonist’s visionary role.
As for all those features you guys keep begging me for, I'm on it!
Good talk tonight with @stoodkev moved the parser down the editor some on recurring billing for the otherwise already running but payment blocking Patreon style channel supporter membership subscription system, and working with the block explorer sites and my trusty AI sidekick, I was able to get most of the stuff ready to start coding out the automated posting> Once I get one post working, then posts will be like potato chips, I ate one so now I'll be able to eat them all, for pre-show "going live now!" posts or "monthly subscriber shoutout" posts or whatever other stuff we dream up in the HiveStreams Discord to put on my to-do list...
...and trust me fam, we're only 4 days in since launch, and that list is miles long (or kilometers even). People are all starting to ask for features and adding to it quickly. WHICH IS A GOOD THING! I love their enthusiasm. It fuels my own for this project.
In Summary
I am building a live streaming platform, but I often call it a "Hub", and the spokes will be @Bambukah's tipping service on Hive currencies or @StoodKev's Keychain or @hiveio's Hivesigner to login, eventually probably help from the guys and gals of 3speak to help store stream recording replays, and many other folks and things...
All the things in HiveStreams that need specialized services that already exist, will rely where logical and feasible on other hive "pieces" to complete the puzzle in a way that can only happen through all the tools and utilities in front of and behind the software Im making for the community to make content for the community, by the community, using the communities technical contributions as the tools.
Like the tipping service or the login tools or the video storage and hosting sites or the blog publishing sites, or the discord bots that will eventually come to exist for it and on and on.
But also under the hood, code contributions like Hive-PHP or HiveJS that are API connection code frameworks made by Hivians for Hivians to develop chain integrations with and so on in the underpinnings of the software.
HiveStreams is going to outsource to other hive tools wherever I can, to be efficient, to expand the use of said tools and services in another vector of exposure and use case, and to further involve "All of us" in being part of the us that is "all in this together"
At least that's some of the vision, for all you watching along at home.
And while you're watching along from home, you should keep an eye on HiveStreams and watch some live streaming along from home too, because that's how all of this works!
See YOU in the streams!
@SirCork
Founder & Developer: @HiveStreams
@PolleNation Hive Witness Partner
Developer: Dead Follower Tools & When Lambo?
Co-Founder: @YouAreHOPE
Hey if you like this stuff, vote for our witness @pollenation ! That surely would help!