Today I got an email from the Decent Foundation inviting me to explore the beta release of DecentGo. I had a few spare minutes so I thought I'd give it a test spin.
What is Decent Go
As per the website,
DECENT GO is the new and secure way to instantly share movies, music, pictures, games, software, articles, or documents on a peer to peer, decentralized network without the hassle of middleman control.
So this platform is geared towards content creators that want to sell their material and consumers that want to buy directly from creators.
Disclaimer
In hindsight I should have read the disclaimer on the email,
IMPORTANT NOTE:
This is not final product, it's meant to "test" functionality, so not all planned features have been included...
The site is very barebones at the moment and it will be interesting to see how the platform develops in the coming months.
Browsing Content
The first I wanted to do was browse the content. There was a search field,
The homepage is very clean however I was expecting a few more pointers. I scrolled down and saw what was 'trending':
I think the dev team should have taken a half a day upload some decent dummy data. Whilst it is beta, the site is open and they are advertising to their mailing list. First impressions make a difference. Also it might be an idea to make cover art compulsory. Blank grey smiley faces aren't the greatest look!
Sign Up
The sign up was super straight forward. Email, password then verification. Users are given a recovery phrase. There is also a password hint option, which I felt was overkill however other users might find useful.
Author Profile
Before you can upload content you need to complete your Author Profile. This was all very smooth and straight-forward. I like the prompts to link to your social media. I do think it would be useful if you can view the profile's of other users, however I guess that will be coming.
Uploading Content
Uploading content is a three stage process
1. Add Basic information
- Taxonomy: I found this a bit to prescriptive and felt this could better done. Title, Cover Art and some tags, with suggested tags would have sufficed. I found it difficult to shoehorn my inspirational quote image into the appropriate category. At the very least it should be multiple choice.
- Setting the price: Also, uploaders are invited to input a price in DCT. Again, there is an assumption that users even know what DCT is. And once even if they do know it's a token, they'd want to know it's dollar or fiat equivalent. As an author I'd also want to fix a dollar price as oppose to price it in DCT.
- License: It would also be useful if there were simple explanations of the licensing options and the implications thereof.
2. Upload
Selecting file to upload is straight forward, as you'd expect. I think technically this should be labelled 'Select file to upload' rather than uploading as that was is being done in this step.
3. Seeding
I think Seeding will be the real kicker and will seem like a catch to most users. Authors are charged at a per MB rate per month for content hosting. The Author also needs to decide the Expiration Date of their content. The platform does total up and display the cost (which is nice). However it remains to be seen whether charging authors for hosting will prove a barrier to people using this service.
When I tried to upload my (relatively small) picture, the screen hung. However after refreshing the browser, I noticed it had indeed refreshed successfully.
Wallet
The wallet page is clean and simple with an option to transfer DCT. I hadn't realised initial however 2.5 DCT was given as a welcome bonus for testers. I'm not sure how much the Decent Team are planning to give away for testing however they may want to be on the look at for bots signing up and nabbing all the bounty.
Transfer: It is possible to transfer to other DecentGo users via their username/ email. However it is unclear whether you can transfer over the blockchain using a wallet address.
Conclusion
First the positives. DecentGo has a very clean and usable interface. And for the most part, it's performance was great.
However it is very bare and can do with more data. Also, more importantly I question the business model. Will authors pay a per day rate for having their content hosted on a decentralised platform? In the eyes of a user will it be seen as simply a move from centralised middlemen (corporations) to decentralised middlemen (miners)?
I'm not sure DecentGo (as it currently stands) will appeal to anything beyond a niche market of people that want to sell their material in a decentralised manner and be prepared to pay for the privilege. There are plenty of other, easier ways to get your work to your customer. In my view there will need to be more incentives for both authors and their customers to engage in this kind of platform for it to take off.