Show HN: Agora: Sell Files on the Web

http://agora.download/files/blog/mvp.html

by rodarmor • 5 years ago

75 57 5 years ago

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Agora is a simple web file server that charges for downloads. It uses the Lightning Network for payments. The Lightning Network is a layer on top of Bitcoin that enables fast payments with very low fees. It settles to the Bitcoin network, so there's no separate token or currency.

Agora is released under a maximally permissive license and written in Rust. Currently it integrates with LND for Lightning Payments, so you'll need to also have an LND instance running if you want to charge for downloads.

And if you're interested in using Agora to sell some files, please try it out and let us know what you think! We have lots of ideas for features that we'd like to add, but are much more interested in what users need.

shiftingleft• 5 years ago

what's the advantage of this over existing systems?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

There might be others, but the existing system that comes to mind is Gumroad, a service that allows creators to sell digital content.

Compared to Gumroad, Agora is not subject to censorship and can be self-hosted.

murple• 5 years ago

Losing funds on lightning network can be "advantage"? https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/91211/how-can-so...

pharmakom3• 5 years ago

How do you prevent users from selling illegal content? Do you really want to be anywhere near that?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

We don't host Agora instances, aside from our test instances, so we cannot prevent users from selling illegal content. Any useful technology has the potential for abuse, and Agora is no different.

devops000• 5 years ago

I think this is actually the case.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

Cool project. Let's say i want to switch the currency from BTC to BAT. How can i do that?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Currently, it only integrates with the Lightning Network via LND. You would have to modify it to support BAT. However, BAT would probably not be a good choice. BAT transactions are slow when compared to Lightning Network payments. Also, since BAT is a token on Ethereum, the fees would likely be prohibitive for small, or even medium size payments.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

Htlc.me message when i tried to buy your file : Send Payment Failed

Payment failed to send. This can happen due to temporary network connectivity issues or an unexpected server error.

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Thanks for trying it out! Is the failure persistent or does it work when you retry it?

altilunium14• 5 years ago

New error message : Payment Problem

You already paid that invoice! Ask them for a new one?

I still cant pass the paywall.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

I cant send the payment to agora.download, but i can send it to test.agora.download . What's happening?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Just saw this now, but agora.download is on mainnnet, and test.agora.download is on testnet, so if you're using a testnet wallet, it won't be able to pay the mainnet invoices from agora.download.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

Hello, i'm from Altilunium News. I just posted Agora's news coverage on Twitter here : https://twitter.com/altilunium/status/1424256255598600198?s=...

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Nice, thank you!

sdan• 5 years ago

So like Gumroad but with crypto payments?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Very much so! Plus it's open source and anyone can run an instance.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

Yes. Bitcoin, specifically.

akomtu2• 5 years ago

This brazen simplicity is what makes it look like the next Dropbox.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

"Received Payment

A welcome gift! Thanks for trying HTLC.me!

0.00313370 tBTC ($140.06 tUSD)"

What is the difference between USD and tUSD?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

HTLC.me is a testnet Lightning wallet, so the balances are in tBTC, testnet bitcoin. tUSD isn't a real thing, it just means that if your balance was in BTC and not tBTC, you would have that much USD.

altilunium14• 5 years ago

Let's say i want to test it by using real BTC. How can i do it? The real lightning wallet.

forgingahead• 5 years ago

Fantastic effort - great to see decentralised file downloads with the ability to accept payments. It's a good step towards freeing independent commerce from the increasingly-censorious establishment tech players.

There is certainly potential for negatives, like people self-hosting to sell pirated and other illegal content. However we're at this point because the establishment services have been engaging in worsening behaviour over the past few years.

Good luck and looking forward to seeing this develop.

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Thank you for the kind words!

altilunium14• 5 years ago

"By default agora serves files for free. To charge for downloads, agora must be connected to an LND instance." https://github.com/agora-org/agora/

"As of this writing, lnd is still in beta and it is considered #reckless to put any life altering amounts of BTC into the network."

https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/docs/saf...

akomtu2• 5 years ago

That's potentially very big, but it needs some plumbing. Can you use a Visa card to refill a "lightning network account" or whatever you call it? Can the seller get proceeds to a bank account in $s?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

It's actually pretty easy to get into and out of Bitcoin. river.com, is a US-based service that allows buying and selling bitcoin with USD, making USD transfers to and from a linked bank account, and making and receiving Lightning Network payments.

So you could set up an LND instance, get inbound liquidity with a service like Bitrefill*, and then withdraw any funds via the Lightning Network to a River account, sell the proceeds for USD, and transfer them to your bank account.

I use River as an example because it's my favorite, but there are many other services that you could also use.

* It's slightly subtle aspect of the Lightning Network, but in order to receive funds, you need inbound liquidity, i.e. a channel with your Lightning Network node with funds on your counterparty's side of the channel. This can be accomplished buy buying inbound liquidity from a service like Bitrefill: https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/lightning-channel/

Turing_Machine2• 5 years ago

For those of us who aren't totally up on crypto stuff, liquidity in this sense is basically buffering the money until the final Bitcoin transaction settles? So if you buy, say, 1,000,000 sats from Bitrefill, that means you can only have 1,000,000 sats worth of transactions "in the pipeline", so to speak?

If so, what happens if you do have more than that amount in outstanding transactions? The transactions fail? They hang around and complete after the pipeline empties out?

What if I just want to assume that the customer is good for the money and queue it up myself for settlement once I have the liquidity to spare. Does Agora let me do that?

I apologize if these are dumb questions.

axiosgunnar• 5 years ago

This could be a self-hosted onlyfans if I understand correctly?

rodarmor23• 5 years ago

Definitely!

aww_dang• 5 years ago

NANO payments might be an interesting addition to this project

jareklupinski• 5 years ago

finally, an implementation for error 402: Payment Required !

Show HN: Agora: Sell Files on the Web

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