Hi, I have a technical background, but have no idea how it works after 1/2hour studying. I red about 3 layers but cannot figure out how to connect to the network and run only one program on the experience layer. I installed 3bot connect, great, but why do I need that? I want to connect over PC, not over mobile. I red about threefold nation, great stuff, but how can I reach it??? I red from TFT, JumpScaleX, 3foldgrid and 100 more abbreviations that might be great, but what the hell is it and why do you need that???
Just connect to the network and run the first application -mission impossible…
No idea how it works after 1/2 hour
1 Like
Did you try to follow the getting started maybe https://sdk.threefold.io/#/getting_started_first_solution ?
I give up. How can you assume that an average joe understands only one sentence on your homepage? The whole thing is written for programmers and abbreviation experts, not for users. I just want to connect to the network and try to run a demo program, nothing else. No idea how to do that. I don’t need a SDK because I’m a user, not a programmer. I don’t want tokens, install a wallet first, deploy an overlay network and 100 more things for a demo program. Sorry -I did some hardware near programming for myself, but every “normal” user gives up after 5 minutes. That is 25 minuntes earlier than I do…
Regards Matthias
2 Likes
Then I think indeed you are not the target audience. You are right that this is aimed to a developer audience. Like you said, this is an SDK, so development is excepted.
It seems you are also missing the point of what Threefold is trying to deliver. You said not wanting to use tokens… at the moment this is the only way to reserve capacity on the grid.
You don’t want to deploy an overlay network, well in a world where you own 100% of your IT infrastructure, network is the first layer you need to put in place.
If you are looking for “usual” public cloud service where everything is done for you and you do not own anything in your infrastructure, then indeed we’re not what you are looking for.
You obviously are looking for implementations of an experience layer, simply installing stuff. This layer is still under construction for a big part. Currently indeed, there’s mostly tooling for developers.
The current functionalities within 3bot connect app already show a bit of what is possible: a social media app where there’s no Facebook hosting all the posts you’re writing, a wallet, and the secure and easy decentralized 2-factor authentication mechanism (which you managed to use because you were able to log into this forum) give some clue about what will come in the future … but there will be a lot more. And probably you are looking for some kind of app store.
Stay tuned !
3 Likes
Thank you Geert,
This layer is still under construction for a big part
Please write this sentence on top of your homepage, so every user can save a lot of time. Seperate the experience layer from the programmers’ stuff, so you will not discourage the first-time users.
It would be fine to have a demo that shows the routing and the connection to a farmer, just like traceroute. I’d like to see how I’m connected in the network. Anyway, after some “bad requests” I got the social media app to run. Great stuff
Regads
1 Like
I don’t have a technical background. I have spent a week reading tech-specs and watching every Kristof interview i can find.
I share this person’s frustrations. Too much jargon and nomenclature.
This project doesnt work with a target audience limited to developers. You need some marketing help to recreate your entire front-facing web pages and Wiki for Laymen. Yep…the whole thing. 2 Wikis, one for non developers who want Plug n Play, and for developers… as you have now.
Luckily i am fully on board. So i am not yet discouraged.
2 Likes
The new flyer is a good start, but still with to much insider knowledge required. Endusers don’t know what a grid is nor a node or a farmer. Endusers want to know how to reach the network (grid). Do I still need an internet service provider or how is the connection to the server (node)? What if “my” server goes offline, are my data safe? Is there enough backup for my data? Do I need special programs running on the 3fold network or how does the interaction with the “normal” internet works? Is my chat, email, facebook etc compatible? How much does it cost (what the hell are tokens)? Can endusers be part of the network (become farmers) just by installing a server software on the home PC?
If these questions can be answered in 10 minutes and the software is installed in further 10 minutes, then people will beat a path to your doors…
Hi Sax,
Here to try and provide some answers.
End users will probably never “reach” the grid, but are more likely to use the cool stuff others might build on top of us (some cool things are already coming!).
Yes, for now you will still need an ISP as an accesspoint to the internet from where you could use services built on the grid
From and end-user perspective, this will be dictated by the creator of the service you are using.
As a developer, you can specify all security measures you need to have backups, spread workloads over different nodes, etc.
We are a complementary grid. for connectivity, we use the same wiring as the regular internet, and it works side by side so to speak. End-users won’t be able to tell the difference when using services that are running on top of the TF Grid from a connectivity standpoint.
Yes, however some of these are unlikely to run on ThreeFold Grid (for now)
As an end-user, nothing… depending on the services you use, some services may have subscriptions. However you could probably pay for those in $ as well. Tokens are used now solely for buying and selling capacity, something an end-user won’t probably do themselves.
Yes, Do It Yourself farming is an option, but for now is still a very technical process. There is also the option of buying a Plug&Play node to co-create this new internet. Farming will get you tokens, and also the usage of your farm will cultivate tokens, which you can exchange for other digital currencies and/or Fiat money.
I’d say it wasn’t so bad 
@sax & @bencook2: Aside from Freeflow Pages, probably the closest thing that ThreeFold offers right now in terms of an end user experience would be hosting a website. If you need to do that and are comfortable working on the command line, then there’s some fun to be had. Otherwise, unless you need a server for something, the kinds of things you’re looking for are still in development, as Roel and Geert mentioned.
The TF Grid is designed to compete with the likes of Amazon Web Services, et al. For comparison, go check out their website. You’ll probably notice that there’s also tons of abbreviations and technical lingo while not a single product or service is designed for end users. At the same time, I can almost guarantee you that you’ve used a a website or app that uses AWS on the backend. I feel your frustration, because ThreeFold is a very exciting and truly revolutionary technology project that we all want to be a part of, but the existing product is designed for developers and IT admins. And yes, the TF website and wiki do need some work, and the team is apparently overhauling both of them right now.
In the meantime, farming and buying TF tokens are ways to support the project and maybe turn a profit if things go well.
1 Like
I appreciate your efforts explaining to me how it works, but explain it to the end users on the first top page when people reach your website. The project lives from end-users and -acceptance. Example: You told me that you can host a website right now -great. I hear that for the first time -why: on the subpage of the experience layer is a long introduction of the benefits and then one short sentence about a “publisher” and a publishing-system. This sounds like a website construction kit but not like webhosting. Why the hell you don’t call it by it’s name: hosting??? Then there is no link how to do that. In the whole wiki there is no word about a publisher. There is no word about the costs and you have to compete with 2$/month hosting providers and I don’t want to compute this in tokens first.
Your whole website is a philosophical essay about a better world but absolute useless for practitioners.
To be clear, I am just another member of this forum who learned about ThreeFold maybe a month ago and decided to get involved. Like myself and others have said, the projects listed for the experience layer and mostly still under construction, and I do agree with you about having the site communicate that.
The example I gave of website hosting was just to give you an idea of what’s possible for someone who really wants to experience what the grid has to offer. For now, you can submit a short form to request some free tokens for testing that work on a few farms that accept them (including mine). And yes, a shared web hosting service like the one you’re describing would likely be very competitive if run on the TF Grid, and they’d probably accept payment by credit card or other cryptocurrencies too. Perhaps such a service will be available soon.
ThreeFold has great ambitions for what will run on the grid someday, but the core of the project now is developing new infrastructure to deliver cloud computing resources rather efficiently in a distributed manner. Most “end users” hardly know that infrastructure exists, which might make it difficult to appreciate the value of what’s been built here so far. Any existing website or app could migrate to the grid and the end users wouldn’t know the difference.
The technology, including an autonomous operating system and low overhead redundant self-healing data storage, is rather fascinating and indeed revolutionary. To see who’s already using it, look at the partner’s page, and maybe go see if the VR art museum running on the grid is more what you were expecting: https://artheon.co/
For the “end user” right now the question isn’t “how do I connect to the ThreeFold grid” but rather “what website do I want to visit that might be running on the grid.” If you want to know more about the technology or the token, I’d be happy to share more of what I’ve learned so far.
1 Like