Aether
Decentralized ApplicationsA peer-to-peer desktop application providing a network of self-governing, ephemeral public communities, conceptually a decentralized Usenet / Reddit analog. Built on the custom Mim protocol; every node holds all content (flood distribution); content is ephemerally deleted after ~6 months. Key innovation: user-controlled "subjective moderation" — moderation is a client-side filter, not a server-side action; users choose which moderators' actions they respect, can impeach mods via local disable votes. Spam protection via proof-of-work. Pseudonymous by default; no IP tracking. Note: aether.app is primarily Aether Pro, a separate centralized SaaS team collaboration tool; Aether P2P (getaether.net) is the decentralized application. P2P repo stalled ~2021; Aether Pro (SaaS) remains active. Funded by Patreon and pre-seed VC for Pro side.
Totalmente P2P Comunidade Risco de captura baixo
Links
Detalhes
Licença AGPL / GPL-3.0
Status de Dev ⚠️ Effectively stalled
Proprietário Aether Technologies, Inc — Burak Nehbit (founder/CEO, ex-Google/YouTube UX designer + engineer); co-founder Lau (joined 2019-2022)
País USA
Ano de Início 2013
Stack Go, Vue.js, TypeScript, Electron, gRPC, JavaScript, SCSS, Snap/AppImage/deb/rpm
Financiamento VC, Grant, Community, Donations
Última Investigação 10 de mar. de 2026
Decentralized Application Atributos
Use Case Category Decentralized social discussion / community forum; public discourse; privacy-conscious community building
User Interface Type Desktop GUI (Electron); dark-mode default; Reddit-like threaded community layout; community list + post threads + mod activity tab
Offline Capabilities Partial — content stored locally on user's node (~300MB); previously synced content accessible offline; new content requires P2P connection; no explicit offline-first design
Collaboration Features Asynchronous threaded discussions per community (subreddit-analog); upvoting/downvoting; moderation (with user override); mod elections; community creation; pseudonymous participation
Data Portability Limited — content stored locally on node; user can back up their own node data; no standard export format; no ActivityPub or federated protocol compatibility; ephemeral (6-month deletion) by design
Integration Ecosystem None — standalone P2P app; no API for external integrations; no plugin ecosystem; Mim protocol open but no third-party implementations known
Prosocial Coherence High design intentionality — subjective moderation model ("consent of the governed") is a principled alternative to black-box algorithmic moderation; mod transparency (all actions visible with stated reasons); mod elections enable democratic community governance; ephemeral content reduces permanent reputation harm. Pro: empowers user agency over information environment. Con: smaller community = echo chamber risk; block list for illegal content is a centralized choke point.
Economic Flows No in-app economy; Patreon donations for P2P development; Aether Pro SaaS subscription funds P2P R&D; no token or crypto payment layer; unique username purchase (supporter perk)
Governance & Decision Making P2P network: community-level democratic moderation — users elect/impeach mods via voting; users can disable any mod locally (reverts all that mod's actions for that user); no global admin; block list (for legally required content removal) is the only centralized governance element. Platform-level: Aether Technologies, Inc makes protocol and product decisions; open source allows forking.
Media / Publishing Text-only posts and threads; inline image/video link previews (user-controlled); code blocks with syntax highlighting; no native media hosting or uploads
Knowledge Management Searchable threaded community archives; hashtags; but ephemeral (6-month deletion) limits long-term knowledge retention; no wiki or structured knowledge features
Sensemaking Upvote/downvote surfacing; community-elected moderators as trusted filters; user-selected moderation subscriptions allow personalized information curation; no algorithmic feed; chronological + voting hybrid. Ephemeral design intentionally limits permanent record / accountability.
Project Management None — discussion forum only; Aether Pro (SaaS) has team channels that can serve project coordination use cases but not native PM features
Communication Model Asynchronous; public threaded posts within communities; no private messaging (P2P version); Aether Pro adds chat rooms and email newsletter delivery
Network Resilience High (P2P layer) — fully P2P, no central servers; content replicated across all nodes; network survives as long as ≥1 node exists and remembers content; self-healing by design. Partial caveat: block list mechanism (for illegal content) contacts an external list, introducing a centralized dependency.
Discovery Mechanism Flood-based content graph distribution — every node receives all content; community browser within app; no algorithmic recommendation; hashtag browsing; no external discovery
Max Participants ~2,000 monthly active users (P2P, as of 2022 reporting); "handles thousands of users in a global realm" per billing docs; no technical hard cap — flood distribution scales with node storage
Data Sovereignty High (P2P) — all content stored locally on user's node; no central server holds user data; pseudonymous by default; IP tracking difficult (P2P relay); user controls moderation experience; ephemeral deletion after 6 months (protocol-enforced, not user-controlled); block list for illegal content is the only external data dependency.