cross-posted from: https://lemmy.radio/post/3983333
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This is one of the coolest things in tech and maybe the most important too. Relying on centralised infrastructure really puts you at the mercy of whoever owns and runs it, as well as their enemies. Look at the internet getting shut down in various places at various times and big institutions like healthcare grinding to a halt.
When I have more time I’m definitely going to try using this stuff.
I can’t tell you how right you are. I used it in power outages" Sometimes cell signal goes down " where you look at your phone and realize ok well I have no backup plan.
I think this is really cool.
But…
What it is: low bandwidth literal physical replacement of internet infrastructure. Often seen as a very extreme manuver.
Meanwhile: there are various overlay projects like i2p which, unfortunately, create new internets which [almost totally] reliance on the old internet. But they do cooler shit.
This is not a replacement for the Internet. It’s currently basically just a low bandwidth local chat app. You could maybe run more complicated protocols on top of it, but it’s not going to replace what we’re doing right here right now.
It’s a great experiment on LoRa though. It could lead to more complex networking. I’m trying to figure out what to do with it right now.