Eve VentuallyIn 2003, Justin Frankel (from #Nullsoft, developer of #WinAmp) released a peer-to-peer file sharing application called WASTE. This is actually slightly after the initial release of BitTorrent. WASTE is named for a motto in Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49. The acronym WASTE stands for We Await Silent Tristero's Empire. It's a term used by an underground postal service. Their symbol is a crude, stick figure image of a horn with a trumpet mute in it.
WASTE as software did more than just allow file transfer. It had chat built in. Like the Fediverse, it's decentralized. However, the networks don't necessarily connect to each other. You would need an in with someone else to join a WASTE network.
Almost as soon as Justin published it, the company that owned Nullsoft (AOL) pulled WASTE back and said that Justin hadn't been authorized to distribute the software so the GNU GPL license it had been released under wasn't valid.
WASTE has been reimplemented a number of times with new features and protocol changes that, in some cases, aren't cross compatible with other WASTE implementations. According to a Sourceforge page, Blackbelt WASTE had its most recent update on 2025-01-27, hinting that WASTE is alive and in operation today.
(This toot owes an obvious debt of gratitude to Wikipedia for the particulars. I had the WASTE software, but never used it beyond opening it. I read The Crying of Lot 49 but it's hard to know whether I read it before Justin released the software.)
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