This post is in reaction to Looking for the killer app for Solid.
There were some, admittedly, very interesting ideas mentioned in this thread so far. But I’d argue that none of them so far could be said to constitute “The Killer App for Solid”. Now, why do I have this feeling? 
Let’s elaborate on that…
Back to basics
I have been confused about and discussed the positioning of Solid in the past. It was advertised on the community website. Since then the landing page of the Solid project has markedly improved. Now, Solid in itself constitutes of a rather low-level set of standards. What they offer - when implemented - in terms of Unique Selling Points are all Non-Functional Requirements.
Listing from the landing page:
- Data ownership
- Interoperability
- Open data
- Privacy & Security
Then the landing page mentions what Solid can be used for when widely adopted:
“Data stored in Solid Pods can power ecosystems of interoperable applications where individuals are free to use their data seamlessly across different applications and services.”
Note that I have highlighted “can power” because it refers to the Vision of Solid…
Vision
The vision is about offering the NFR’s above, then combined with ambition:
Universal, global adoption of the Solid suite of open technology standards.
In other words, Create a Better Web.
Killer app?
My original confusion, and also what tempered my enthusiasm to delve deeper, was that Solid in her positioning overloaded the terms of “App” and “Application”. Seeing them as the ‘old way’ of doing things, and offered “Solid Apps” as the new and exciting alternative. Solid essentially made a call-to-action to completely reinvent the web, and fully rebuild from the ground up. Every app should be replaced with a solid app along the way.
No!
Imho this is unrealistic and will never happen… at least not in the way this community thus far approaches achieving the Vision.
Going back to what started this thread:
The answer is obviously that all these application domains could profit from Solid. In fact, any business domain could. And where they do, they start forming aforementioned ecosystems together.
Though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with building your own Solid-enabled apps, I feel that in general the original proposition is what has led this community astray in her pursuit of making Solid a resounding success. And here I highlighted “community”, because I think that e.g. Inrupt is not led similarly off-track… they are right on top of the money!
Let me explain more, why I think that is the case…
Who’s the customer?
Take these two statements:
- Software has eaten the world. There are billions of software projects, and trillions of dollars invested.
- Solid is not an end-user technology. The USP’s it offers are mostly not manifesting as end-user features.
Do you think an app will be the disruptor here? An InstaSolid, or SolidFace, SolidTube maybe? Of course not.
Solid not being end-user technology, means that end-users are not the direct audience that should be targeted. They are the developers, the product managers & marketers, the IT decision makers, any techie involved with software development!
Solid target audience is anyone involved in software development
I see most people in this community dedicated to Solid’s success trying to target end-users with things like “Here’s my MVP of AppXYZ with Solid in it! How do you like that?”. Most end-users will not be easily impressed, I think.
And even the majority of developers looking at your example apps won’t be. In a world where new projects pop up every second, they’ll give a quick look at the code and go “Meh, NodeJS + Typescript. I am Elixir and Go… next project”.
Note that Inrupt et al doesn’t have this positioning. If they enact their vision, they’ll be a unicorn before long.
Stripe – – – — — — – – –
It is funny that when I duck out “stripe” the first pages of search results all refer to the unicorn company of that same name. It is well chosen 
Let’s look at the definition of the original word:
Stripe
(strīp), taken from Idioms:
- (one’s) (true) stripes
- One’s true or honest beliefs, thoughts, convictions, biases, desires, etc.; one’s real personality, character, or disposition.
- earn (one’s) spurs
- To prove one’s skill in a particular area.
- earn (one’s) stripes
- To prove that one is deserving of a particular position or designation.
Appropriate, right? Rock-solid name for the Stripe.com company. And guess what… Solid has equally nice idioms 
I am, of course, mentioning this because Stripe is doing things the way that the Solid community should be doing things - again, imho - to be successful and attain the Vision. What does Stripe do then, and do so well?
They do not provide an app, or apps. Stripe has productized a concept, namely that of “Payments” in any way, shape or form. And their audience are not end-users either. It is software developers across the entire spectrum, anyone involved in IT. In this they have proven their skills in a particular area:
To make it dead easy to integrate Stripe whenever one thinks Payments.
Solid … A Killer Technology !
This then is the gist of this long post…
Forget the pursuit of the Solid Killer App !
If you manage to create a killer app, it will probably not be because it is a Solid app (though Solid support may well be an important contributing factor). Your app will be killing because you built unique end-user features in a particular existing or new domain.
Instead strive to position Solid as a killer technology. Right now it is mostly an emerging standard specification. It is a set of draft papers. (Though by all means you should continue to build new apps, if that has your passion)
Killer technology means:
- Tools
- Libraries
- Documentation
- Processes
- Best-practices
- Events
- Education
- Advocacy
These types of things. And if there is a library, and it is NodeJS + Typescript, then the community should actively seek for “Who implements this in Golang, who in Elixir, and who in Java / Kotlin?”. For documentation it means “Who translates to Spanish, who to French?”. For processes “What are the current procedures? How can we make that easier? Can a tool suppor this”. If something is end-user facing e.g. a UX component library “How can we make this as frictionless as possible?”
Most of all what this community really needs is more active members.
Members coming from all across the target audience. Here advocacy, education, events come firmly into the picture.
Community of Action
This community of technologists - it has been discussed before - is not well-supported by those developing the standards. They have Inrupt and some other parties as central focus and a commercial audience as target customers. That’s fine, and a good business decision, from their perspective. Unicorn status, fame… possible, if executed well.
What will their products look like? There’ll surely be a lot of open source. I guess the business model behind this will be mostly open core technology and value-added services. How long will it take for free software, FLOSS, to catch up? Dunno.
Right now, by developing end-user apps, most of this community is effectively in a “wait-and-see” modus operandi. Passive, rubbing hands to see what next great things become available. It is a pity, and it may be a missed opportunity later on.
AFAICS there’s no one taking community initiative, doing the community chores and trying to make this tech lift off and skyrocket in the free software movement.
Right now you are in a Community of Interest and for Solid’s Open Vision this should become a true Community of Action.
Question is…
