Post
Every once in a while, I introduce folk to Interpeer, and the reaction often enough is "you're thinking ahead by 5-10 years".
Something like this happened a short while ago, but it was the first time someone added "that must be lonely".
So... about that.
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Yes, it is lonely. Without the likes of @dentangle and @onepict from #librecast, it would have been too lonely at times... which is why I keep appreciating feedback, even if it's just questions.
Questions: there are no dumb ones.
There may be ones I haven't explained well. Helping me work out how to explain them better is a way you can actively support this project, and you do so by asking questions.
This way, things also become less lonely.
That 5-10 year frame always trips me up, though. It's always that time frame, and I'm starting to think it's the "nuclear fusion of tech time frame", i.e. something that is a ways off, but kind of understood well enough not to think of it as too far away.
Anyway, it's dead wrong.
The foundations on which I am personally building are now about 20 years old. 19, to be precise, but 20 sounds better.
That's when I worked on on-demand video distribution over peer-to-peer networks, with live...
... broadcast a few later.
A lot of details are different, but the fundamentals aren't.
I'm also working on this as a software driven R&D project. In R&D, going from experiments to production readiness at scale over a time frame of 20 years is normal.
I started this about 5 years ago in earnest. 5-10 years into the future from now on isn't so wrong, on that time frame.
But the time is really weird for MVP thinking prevalent in tech. If you don't convince VCs of some significant goal...
... within 3 years, your 6 month MVP won't get funded.
In that sense, 5-10 years is shorthand for "further in the future than I'd be willing to plan ahead".
That's also fair, considering that 3 year roadmaps is about par for the course for businesses.
The "software-driven" part trips people up sometimes. There's usable software here, but it's small, semi-complete increments of the big picture.
A fair bit more than experiments, a bit less than prototypes. It's a weird mixture.
Mostly this is because it's a complex topic, and one that is most easily addressed in components that each undergo their own evolution. Breaking this up into individual software keeps things manageable, but also in a perpetual state of there, but not there.
At any rate, time frames are a fun thing.
But also, I've been lucky in that this journey has led me to meet people who did similar things some 15-20 years ago.
I found it odd that I'm rediscovering lost stuff. They found it...
... confirmation of their previous results.
So, anyway. 5-10 years or 15-20.
For a fast paced sector, either is ages.
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