On: We Paid 20% Of Our Employees $25,000 To Quit

[thih9]

> Our mission is simple: To create an open and secure messaging network that will last forever.

I’m getting mixed signals; the company name is Ephemera - with “ephemeral”, meaning “lasting a very short time”[1].

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ephemeral

[huem0n → thih9]

They publish the app under unshut labs. And the terms and conditioning only give more mixed signals:

> 3. Unshut Labs may terminate your access to the app at any time and for any reason, without notice.

https://converseapp.notion.site/Terms-and-conditions-004036a...

So ephemeral actually refers to your ability to use their app.

[Two4 → huem0n]

It seems like the kind of risk-averse cover-all clause a corporate lawyer would try to shoehorn into an agreement. I don't exactly blame them - many companies were caught with their pants down when AI became mainstream, as they were being crawled for all their data and they had nothing in their ToS that would allow them to stop it.

[shanusmagnus → thih9]

Presumably the network lasts forever, not necessarily the messages.

[swmcsimov → shanusmagnus]

Good question.

The protocol XMTP is built to last forever and will outlive us all, the name of the company is a reminder that if the company ever went away that the protocol must be able to live on. Requirement for decentralization.