A radical alternative to cloud computing servers

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Hello reader,

Do you remember the old anti-piracy ad that went: “You wouldn’t download a car?”

Actually, if that were possible, I think most people would have. Such were the days of Napster and LimeWire, when burned CDs became the modern-day mixtapes and provided the soundtracks to many adolescent years.

I’m clearly waxing lyrical about a bygone era, but if today’s premium article is anything to go by, that same energy over peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing still exists. And apparently, it’s fueling a desire to “break Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s ‘monopoly’ in cloud computing servers.”

Read on to find out more.

Today we look at:

• Whether P2P can beat cloud servers
• South Korean traveltech firm Onda’s international journey
• Other newsy highlights such as the US$16 million series A round of an Indian healthtech startup and Xiaomi’s EV debut

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Image credit: Timmy Loen

There are many names in today’s story, so let me help you summarize: Pear Runtime is the open-source software platform that allows developers to build P2P apps. It was launched by app developer Holepunch, which has Paolo Ardoino as its chief strategy officer and Mathias Buus as the CEO.

Ardoino is also the CEO of crypto firm Tether, which backs Holepunch.

Got it? OK, let’s continue with the rest of the story.

• Strong words: Ardoino says he wants to break the hold of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google on the cloud computing industry. “We can prove that the entire model of client server – that has been pushed down the throat of developers for the last 20 years – has been in a way a lie. It has been completely dismissive of the reality that the internet was built to be peer to peer,” he says.
• Bad rep: P2P has a reputation for enabling piracy – of music, movies, and other media – but Ardoino is unapologetic about its past and does not offer any solutions on how to protect against this issue.
• Take the power back: Ardoino plans to attract developers to Pear Runtime by emphasizing the scalability and price of P2P networking. “You can do it directly from your computer without the need of paying tens of hundreds or tens of millions of dollars to Google or AWS,” he says. He also argues that client-server networks don’t scale easily or cheaply.

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The rise of Malaysia’s tech ecosystem

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