Pretty neat if you think about the technology as a smarter cache. One could easily see certain applications, such as blog networks or Twitter alternatives.
Security is easy in some cases. Sign your log appends. Security around transactions without a central authority is pretty complex. Whats the solution there? Block-chain type things? It would have to be application specific I suppose.
I never gave FirebaseDB a shot because it felt like too much vendor lock in but this might be interesting to try one day.
Great comments! Indeed, "sign your log appends" gives everything needed for authority. Re. transactions, from OrbitDB's perspective this would be application specific, so you could hook into traditional, centralized consensus or use a blockchain or other types of decentralized consensus mechanisms. Or, given the core data structure is a log, build a "custom database" on OrbitDB that models and provides an interface for a consensus algorithm, eg. "append 1: head is X" <- "append 2: ack head is X" <- "append 3: ack from me too that head is X" etc.
Security is easy in some cases. Sign your log appends. Security around transactions without a central authority is pretty complex. Whats the solution there? Block-chain type things? It would have to be application specific I suppose.
I never gave FirebaseDB a shot because it felt like too much vendor lock in but this might be interesting to try one day.