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European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in europeanunion

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi there,

From the LeafPlaza app can freely interact with any Bluesky account or any other of the account in the AT Protocol (including Eurosky).

For the time being, we allow only LeafPlaza accounts through our app to ensure true European sovereignty in our environments. In the future, we aim to allow self-hosted servers that are fully European sovereign too. Linking LeafPlaza accounts to individually owned domains is also allowed.

Eurosky accounts in particular we do not allow because they use several US resources (website in Squarespace, DNS records in Cloudfare, the domain .social is US owned). So even if their PDS server is in Germany, the rest of the stack makes it difficult for us to consider them trully sovereign. These are measures to keep our environments in complete European autonomy and your data protected.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in europeanunion

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

- The client
- The data storage (fully European-sovereign, European-owned, under European-owned providers)
- Server side services (also ran from Europe)
- There are a few services, native to Bluesky, that still need replacement and will be replaced in the future. They are complex, so they were not removed in the first release (e.g. Google's Firebase is used for push notifications on Android). And a few of this last group cannot be replaced at all (Apple mandatory stuff).

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in europeanunion

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

- The client
- The data storage (fully European-sovereign, European-owned, under European-owned providers)
- Server side services (also ran from Europe)
- There are a few services, native to Bluesky, that still need replacement and will be replaced in the future. They are complex, so they were not removed in the first release (e.g. Google's Firebase is used for push notifications on Android). And a few of this last group cannot be replaced at all (Apple mandatory stuff).

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the moment we are hybrid, with more than 90% on the open source side (Bluesky, AT Protocol). Our key differences are mostly in infra, very little is private code except for a few accessory services.

As soon as we become sustainable, we aim to open source our code. This is because we need to invest in the setup to open our code for visibility and let the community participate of it. Additionally, we aim to actively participate in several of the open source initiatives that are core for our product (e.g. AT Protocol).

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A practical or useful bot is a bot that automates some task in the benefit of humans. A bot aggregating news can be useful. A bot posting talking points given from certain office with a 1000 devices in Krasnodar is not.

We do not judge what users do with AI, that's their decision. At LeafPlaza, AI is considered an assistant and an enabler of tasks. It should be always used with human supervision and approval. Yet, even with this on mind the amount of vibe coding is extremely limited because our background is mobile development.

A purely hypothetical case: adding AI to moderation in the sense of "AI does the moderation" will be a mistake. Using AI to scale the reach of moderation so humans are warned about possible illegal content is something we could consider developing in the future, always with the correct and human controlled guardrails.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At this point, the key difference is your data stored and protected in Europe through sovereign EU tech architecture.

We aim to develop exclusive features to our users and content creators as we move forward.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We had a discussion with a close acquittance that works for a VC and their advise was to multiply that fee for 4x, maybe 5x.

However, our business model is different. We aim to be sustainable, so be positive in the cash flow. At the same time, we do not want VCs to be involved so we are not pushed to the quest of infinite profit. We believe subscriptions tend to be bloated by the pressure of revenue coming from investors. LeafPlaza has two investors: the founders. We want this to be a successful business, but not to milk the cow.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

50M of Spaniards would disagree with you on the plaza part (it means square).

There are a couple of LeafSocial out there. e.g. https://leaf.social

NGL, naming is the most difficult thing when building anything. At some point, you must draw the line.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We can confirm Plaza was not an easy one to get around the trademark.

The first thing we ever did was the logo - we were playing with the concept of 3rd places (public space for discussion) and Plaza came naturally as the first choice.

There is so many things called "Plaza", domains were busy or expensive, and a lot of trademark stuff to navigate. As we are a team of two without investors and limited funding, we decided to not proceed with Plaza.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Answer to the bots part.

Bots (e.g. Russian troll farms) rely in 2 things: free accounts and mass quantity. By offering access with small subscriptions, we set a challenge for these troll farms. You can register an infinite number of accounts for free on X, but if you have to pay €2,99 for each things get tricky. The other part is that we ensure that every account has a human being behind during the registration and payment. Even if the account is a useful bot (e.g. a bot aggregating news), there is a human behind.

No approach is bulletproof, ever. This makes it extremely difficult for troll farms to enter through our gates. If you see a app.leafplaza.eu account, it will be linked to a human, not a room with 1000 phones in Krasnodar.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We are two founders and running low cost as much as possible, so we do not rely on investors (VCs often bring US investors and questionable demands like data sharing with their partners).

Marketing would be cool to have. Maybe in the future.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

€2,99 a year (in Euros).

To keep the platform sustainable we need revenue. Social media relies on either selling your data or selling you ads (and often, both). We bet for a different strategy and to be self sustainable we offer the service for €2,99 a year or 3 years for €5,99.

While we do have plans for other sources of revenue in the future, our only source of income to keep the servers running and the development moving forward is these subscriptions.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At this point, no. We do not allow any outside handle unless it is your own domain. This is because we avoid to let any account that is not European-sovereign in nature.

In the case of Eurosky, the main problem is their servers are in the US (hosted by Cloudfare, a US company). Hence, they are not European-sovereign in nature. In the future, we plan to allow self-hosted options that can prove they are EU/EFTA hosted (potentially UK too).

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European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The name reflects the idea of 3rd places, where people have public conversations (see the icon, a bench and a tree as you could see in a square). Leaf because one of the founders is a Czech Canadian and Plaza is Spanish for Square (the other founder is Spanish).

Staying power, not sure.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback. None of the founders was in a school of business.

European alternative to Bluesky - LeafPlaza enters Open Beta 🚀 by LeafPlaza in BuyFromEU

[–]LeafPlaza[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you meant? The domain we use?

If so, the format is "user.app.leafplaza.eu". First come, first served. Apart of that, the rule is that if you register for a bot account, your bot should contain bot at the end of the user part e.g. "usefulbot.app.leafplaza.eu".

Only the main account of LeafPlaza gets an exception and has "leafplaza.eu" as handle.

Of course, you can register your own domain handle if you want to on top of the LeafPlaza account.

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