Why the Blockchain there? I don't really see the value. But maybe I misunderstand. It's just that I tend to be pretty dismissive of products mentioning blockchain. Mostly from the time when this tech was severely overhyped. Like Metaverse after it and now of course AI. I do know there's some usecases for it, I just wonder what they are and why you chose it.
I think I like the idea but I don't think I fully understand what it is that you're doing :) But I love everything VR.
Take this with a grain of salt, as I run a startup in the industry.
Blockchain has taken a weird path. It started with Bitcoin offering something genuinely new - a Byzantine fault-tolerant mechanism for decentralized value exchange without trusted intermediaries. But the industry has drifted toward "web3" hype where the technology often isn't necessary.
Companies pick tech stacks for all sorts of reasons beyond technical merit - vendor relationships, development velocity, legacy system compatibility, and UX considerations all factor into these decisions.
Truth is, most blockchain companies today are solving problems that could be handled just fine with traditional databases and APIs. The industry is shifting toward abstraction layers that hide the consensus mechanisms anyway, focusing on user experience instead.
The project mentioned probably doesn't actually need a blockchain backend for what it's doing, except maybe for tradable collectibles on an ERC standard.
It is wise to be suspicious - spending even a small amount of time near the "web3" space will make attentive person suspicious of scams and parlour tricks.
I use the network to host the webxr experiences, which are bundled wasm files, from unity. All of the code lives on the blockchain so, in this sense, i really couldn't do without it.
If you are referring to blockchain-specific functionality, then this is largely true, however i have implemented some demostrations of the consensus mechanism being used from inside an immersive space. This is really to illustrate that it is possible, rather than try to sell you a meme coin.
In the near future I expect to be using the ICP for a lot more, however, since it provides some rather interesting technical opportunities. It is wrapped around something called a 'network nervous system' which acts as a sort of administrator for proposals, so your point about abstraction is accurate, but this is the case with any large vendor.
I choose to build on the ICP because it is more secure and straightforward for my particular stack, plus it has a lot of potential, despite the noise. I've implemented webrtc messaging to keep the cost of normal multiplayer data transfer as low as possible, because consensus is expensive and the network runs on a pay-per-use compute model.
I'm offering a new route, outside of big tech, if you don't consider Unity a menace, which i acknowledge that some do. I am taking an admittedly more radical stance, by including the hosting in this.
Now that I have the context, I find what you're doing super interesting, and well thought out. And greatly value the passion you're building it with as well.
I want to clarify, my message wasn't intended as a dig at what you are doing - especially since I didn't actually look into it at all before writing my reply.
By definition, and especially when explained with enough detail, anything that we do couldn't be done with a different tool, in the sense it'd have to be done differently.
What my comment was meant to address was the original comment's question regarding the value of doing something "on-chain". Mainly because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot, being a founder as well in a similarly-hyped vertical.
At it's core, blockchains are a database, and so any high level goal - beyond the composability/interoperability of on-chain primitives through tokens and shared state - can be achieved without a blockchain.
However, there are many reasons to leverage the position of a blockchain project beyond the technical _need_ for a DLT.
The VC environment might be attractive to some -leveraging the network effects of a sufficiently decentralized network, tapping into ecosystem incentives and growth programs, personal alignment with the moral values typically associated with decentralization, personal connections in the industry/vertical, etc.
All that to say; no one asks why you're using a relational database or a graph database with as much suspicion or caution as they do why you're putting your stuff on-chain, and while that makes sense because of the... unique circumstances of DLTs, there's a lot more nuance to it from a business perspective than just asking yourself the "is it a grift?" question.
I guess what i wanted to get across was that ICP is considerably more than a database, but tbh it's a massive rabbit hole, unless you're already into cryptography. I'm impressed by the foresight and scale of it though.
I thinks it's also the first thing i would call an AI governor, and there is a whole liquid democracy protocol that's pretty well thought out, imo
Yes, the hype waves have been painful. I am still annoyed by the lack of good tools and content for VR lovers. I am personally trying to do something by offering a toolkit for building VR websites in unity.
My website has a few examples on it, including domestic interior, bowling simulator. Recently I helped to make a VR museum, which will be there soon, and I'm working on a flying game with realistic aerodynamics.
I've open-sourced both the toolkit and template for self-hosting, essentially providing a no-code route for creating interactive webxr spaces. Putting it on the IC means you can also self-host your creation and keep control of the data, code and costs of running it.
You could equally just use the unity toolkit and host it elsewhere, but i wouldn't be able to provide the same level of support, if it broke in unexpected ways.
What i like about the original post was the fully in-browser RAG and webLLM, as it looks compatible with the rest, so i could, for example, broadcast responses across webrtc data channels. So many options...
I think I like the idea but I don't think I fully understand what it is that you're doing :) But I love everything VR.