Akasha First Impressions
> Akasha stores users' files on IPFS instead of a centralized server which means that a government could not simply block access to a single server to shut down Akasha.
If you live in the Western world (like almost 80 % of internet users) and you're not a silicon valley type, this is a non issue because Western governments don't really go around shutting down social networking sites. In fact I can't think of a single case of them having done so despite social networking site like 4chan and 8chan which have really pushed the envelope when it comes to content.
Even if you target the small percentage of people in the developing world, it still won't matter - because these people are more concerned about their government blocking the site than they are about some government closing the website completely.
>pay you to post
People use social networks to socialize, not to profit. I'm not saying that profit motive can't be a secondary motive - but given the relatively small amounts of money you can pay people per post, it will never be a very strong motive.
This is not the first social network to think paying people for posts and it won't be last . . . but it will be wrong in thinking it can motivate people to use it with the promise of a few measly dollars.
And this should be obvious from the fact that every single social networking site that is popular (with the exception of youtube) does not get users by offering the cash to post. And even youtube never really got users with it's partner program. Partnership incentivezed people to spend more time on high quality videos - something that doesn't work for social networks - how much time and production could you possibly put into a social networking post?
Out of curiosity: what is the inspiration for this name? It's means sky in Sanskrit.
From their website:
As a word, AKASHA ( [aːkaːʃə], आकाश) has roots in Sanskrit and means “ether” in both its elemental and metaphysical senses. The ancient Sanskrit-speaking civilization envisioned akasha as a metaphysical information network connecting humanity with itself and infinite knowledge. In this paradigm, thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences are stored forever and shared through the ether, which acts as an universal field connecting multiple planes of existence. Thousands of years later we have created a modern information network openly connecting humans with each other and perpetual knowledge. As a decentralized application AKASHA deploys a next-generation information architecture born from the fusion of Ethereum and the Inter-Planetary File System. Thanks to these technologies we were able to create a planetary-scale information network immune to censorship by design, where your thoughts and ideas will echo throughout humanity’s existence.