Flare.pub is supposed to be a decentralized video app for Nostr

It is unclear how Flare prevents Flare itself from deleting your videos, as Nostr’s protocol doesn’t store videos, the relays store messages.  Even worse than Nostr’s regular images being on 1 random server with government DNS, Flare centralizes that to a single entity.  And even worse than that, Flare has chosen Amazon AWS with Google 3rd party JavaScript on his main website.  It’s unclear what the purpose of Flare is, if it’s not to defy Big Tech companies.

There are a few approaches one could take instead.  One approach is federation, where users self-host websites.  This is how our website works with Nostr signing integration for video comments.  This is also how Peertube works.  Our website vid.simplifiedprivacy.com is basically Peertube but with Nostr subscriptions/comments.

Another approach is to have content stored either directly on a blockchain or coordinated by one.  IPFS and Arweave are two examples of this.  IPFS isn’t perfect because it counts on your followers torrent sharing your controversial content, which can’t defy a serious adversary.

Yet another approach is a decentralized CDN with docker containers.  Akash, Flux, Golem, and many others take this approach.  Here you’d either self-host, blockchain host, or you could even have the videos on the docker containers themselves, and then the random nodes push forth your message.

Because all of these solutions involve non-bitcoin solutions, instead Nostr’s community has settled on images and videos being just regular government controlled single URL servers.  Hornet Storage is being developed currently to offer a lightning marketplace using a similar but different style to IPFS Merkle trees.  That’s great, I wish them the best.  I WANT them to succeed.  I’m rooting for you my brother.  But until you have a minimum viable product we can actually use, then it’s just shit talking.  They are comparing real world solutions to hypotheticals because being a bitcoin maxi has blinded you into ignoring new tech.  Maxis are essentially the new Amish.

This article does NOT advocate for any particular method, only that they are all better than Flare.