"An Urbit" is a tiny VM with its own network protocol. It allows you to run apps written for it which can communicate over the Urbit network (By far the most used one is an instant messaging app).
Every Urbit has a permanent address which persists even if you move it around between computers. Each Urbit fully encapsulates its own state, so it can be zipped into a single file, unzipped 20 years later on a different computer, and it'll still work, still be able to connect to the network, and still contain all the data you had.
Urbit apps are fully decentralized, users own all the data and control what and how they wish to share it via the Urbit network.
As it contains a high-level Turing-complete programming language named Hoon, it could be used for anything which regular computers are used for.
There are actually some very interesting ideas in Urbit. Unfortunately it's all hidden below many layers of obfuscation and weird naming.
Re-write of a) the internet, b) the WWW, c) compiler, d) operating system, e) app runtime. Presumably these all need to be re-written from scratch for undisclosed reasons.
It could be the next iteration of networked software that adds security, gives ownership back to the people, breaks the big tech monopolies, actually beyond that the Urbit docs are vague with respect to the benefits of the platform (not to mention how they plan to accomplish these goals and avoid the pitfalls of the existing tech).
I have to say I'm skeptical! I get major vibes of NIH syndrome and delusions of grandeur from this project.
* The original vision for the internet was decentralized: if I want to send you a message or do some computing work together, I would have my computer talk directly to your computer
* This vision actually failed and today virtually all computing on the internet has become centralized in big corporate servers. Instead of my computer talking to yours, my computer logs into Facebook's server and we communicate through Facebook controlled accounts. These big corporations control our accounts and identities and often our data too. They can censor us at their whims, serve us ads, and data mine us
* The decentralized vision failed because decentralized software is much harder to build than centralized software and servers are much harder for everyday people to operate than regular client operating systems
* It seems unlikely that these problems can be solved from within the current ageing technology stack, so what if we built a new tech stack - designed from scratch to make decentralized networked computing easier - where running your own server is no harder than running your own web browser or smartphone
> a new tech stack - designed from scratch to make decentralized networked computing easier
It's important to emphasize how very deeply from scratch it is, renaming absolutely everything, even the most basic concepts, with lots of abstractions.
That's maybe important and interesting to developers, but the value proposition of urbit is to the regular computer user. John Doe doesn't care what names or concepts are used in ECMAScript, he just cares that his browser works. John Doe doesn't care what names or concepts are used in the urbit stack, he just cares that his personal server works
The value proposition depends on developers, so mentioning the mysteries they have to go through is relevant to making a summary. It's a huge part of what makes urbit urbit.
