> Any ideas how to reach people without gatekeepers? I have just one way: a desktop app or mobile app that is allowed to periodically wake up and poll a server.
If you're asking "anybody today" then yes, that's probably one of the only ways.
But maybe tomorrow might be better.
On the horizon (where it may stay - it's been slow in coming) is the idea of "distributed and serverless" internet. Also known as "peer-to-peer".
You can think of it as everyone (well, their device) being their own server - kinda like the internet was originally meant to be (before vast sums of money got involved).
Through "magic" - each person that is on the network can browse, send, receive, post, etc - to others without needing much of anything else - just the pipe (not really any way around that kind of "gatekeeper" unless you have a mesh network of some sort - and even there, long-haul can be tough or impossible). A well known example:
https://ipfs.io/
...there are others out there as well; just google around for "peer-to-peer web" and similar terms.
If you're asking "anybody today" then yes, that's probably one of the only ways.
But maybe tomorrow might be better.
On the horizon (where it may stay - it's been slow in coming) is the idea of "distributed and serverless" internet. Also known as "peer-to-peer".
You can think of it as everyone (well, their device) being their own server - kinda like the internet was originally meant to be (before vast sums of money got involved).
Through "magic" - each person that is on the network can browse, send, receive, post, etc - to others without needing much of anything else - just the pipe (not really any way around that kind of "gatekeeper" unless you have a mesh network of some sort - and even there, long-haul can be tough or impossible). A well known example:
https://ipfs.io/
...there are others out there as well; just google around for "peer-to-peer web" and similar terms.