It can be hard to express the value proposition. For a lot of people, it's a media server with some really neat torrent related apps. For others it's a photosharing box that doesn't share photos with anyone you don't want it to. Others buy it because it's a tiny Kubernetes cluster, and they want to learn real tech skills with their hobby.
But honestly, it's also a computer. It's the dream machine (1). What was the value proposition of the personal computer? What we're proposing is the personal server. Billions of folks run the client-side of the internet - but only a tiny elite class of us know how to run the server-side?
If I get hyperbolic and kool-aid drunk, just know it's because I'm quite passionate about this. The blockchain folks talk a lot about "distributing the web". We're simply distributing web servers.
For now though - it's a neat box to run Photostructure or a Ghost blog on :)
Neat gadget/site! I think people have concerns around value proposition when you sell the box for hundreds of dollars and say it's good to host a Ghost blog on.
I would probably advertise something bigger because FWIW I host a blog on a $5 pi fronted by Cloudflare (free).
These look really nice and clean though, wish you the best!
Off topic, but I think that stripe.com page you've linked to is the most beautifully designed modern webpage I've ever had the pleasure of scrolling. It's the 3d objects that move ever-so-slightly along with my cursor passing over them that does it for me.
Very cool. How are people clustering with these? Do you know how they are setting up their laptops etc. as control nodes, buying pis as control nodes, or something else? Is there out of the box capability to cluster with nodes from cloud providers?
The pibox runs as a master and worker at the same time - and most folks just use them as individual servers (if they have two "clusters", they're just clusters of one server each). We really want to lean into improving this in the future! Several power users have complex setups with a PiBox acting as the master for a number of other servers (and our UI and software mostly just works even with multiple nodes). Under the hood, it's really just k3s - our software is designed to work with any Kubernetes cluster, so things all mostly fit together naturally!
I'd love to make it really easy for users to cluster nodes together. 100% on our roadmap if we can get there!
But honestly, it's also a computer. It's the dream machine (1). What was the value proposition of the personal computer? What we're proposing is the personal server. Billions of folks run the client-side of the internet - but only a tiny elite class of us know how to run the server-side?
If I get hyperbolic and kool-aid drunk, just know it's because I'm quite passionate about this. The blockchain folks talk a lot about "distributing the web". We're simply distributing web servers.
For now though - it's a neat box to run Photostructure or a Ghost blog on :)
1. https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine