Hello @zelf, welcome and thanks for the thoughtful post. I am myself a user of Scuttlebutt (SSB), and would like to qualify your proposition that
Scuttlebutt’s presentation video states:
When Scuttlebutt is running, it looks to see if there are any other Scuttlebutt accounts on the local network, that is to say, the coffee shop wi-fi.
In the video, the two cute characters Jackie and Martin are indeed using SSB from the same coffee shop. She follows him, he is well connected, and all is clear skies and smooth sailing from there. Indeed, they do not need “the Internet” to share stuff with each other, because they sit on the same local network. Neither do they need servers, because the content lives in folders on their laptops. So, technologically, the features you identify in your post ensue.
But what happens socially? Not much, it turns out. Maybe New Zealand is different that way, but If I go to a Brussels Café the chances of someone else running SSB from the same café are close to zero. So, nothing is enabled for me. To use SSB, i need to use the hack of pubs:
pubs are servers that have a static IP address, are always online, and always follow you back when you follow them (thus growing their network). In this way, they can act as a waypoint for you to find the location of your friends and catch up with them. When you first get started on Scuttlebutt it can appear incredibly empty until you “join” a pub.
In other words, I could not use SSB without “the Internet” (or moving to a hipsterish area of New Zealand, perhaps).
None of this invalidates what you have to say. All I’m saying is this: let’s all be very wary of technological determinism. Just because the tech enables something, it does not mean this something will happen. I am curious: do you have any experience of SSB working locally, as in your areas 1 and 2? Where? Do you have any observation to report as to what people use it for?
Keep up the good work.
Pasting the link to the SSB presentation video for the many folks who do not use it.
