Eli Mallon - Streamplace and the future of decentralized video streaming
Apr 28, 2025
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Eli Mallon, founder of Streamplace and a pioneer in decentralized video solutions, discusses the future of video streaming. He shares the challenges of building platforms that prioritize user engagement and alternatives to centralized models like Twitch. The conversation dives into content ownership, monetization strategies, and the potential of micropayments for supporting creators. Additionally, Eli explores how decentralized technology can reshape social media, emphasizing the need for sustainable and accessible digital experiences for everyday users.
Eli Mallon emphasizes the potential of decentralized video streaming to empower users by providing an open infrastructure that disrupts monopolistic platforms.
Stream.Place leverages the App Protocol to enhance user interaction and community engagement while ensuring content ownership remains with creators.
The podcast highlights the importance of sustainable revenue models through micropayments to support creators in the decentralized streaming ecosystem.
Deep dives
Decentralized Video Streaming Revolution
Decentralized video streaming aims to disrupt platforms like Twitch by offering an open infrastructure where users control their content. Eli Mallon, the founder of Stream.Place, emphasizes the challenges posed by centralized platforms and their monopolistic tendencies. His experience at LivePeer, a decentralized video processing network, laid the groundwork for Stream.Place, which seeks to provide a similar decentralized solution but tailored for live streaming. This vision encompasses a platform that could endure for decades, enabling users to create and share content without the constraints imposed by traditional services.
LivePeer's Impact on Video Processing
LivePeer operates by utilizing a decentralized network of orchestrators to handle video transcoding, significantly lowering costs compared to centralized giants like Amazon and Google. While conventional video processing can be prohibitively expensive, LivePeer's model processes video for a fraction of the cost, allowing user-generated content platforms to thrive. This monumental cost reduction, from around a dollar an hour to approximately 17 cents, creates space for more creators to enter the live streaming arena. The efficient transcoding capabilities are central to enabling a robust decentralized live streaming experience on Stream.Place.
Building on the App Protocol
Stream.Place is designed as a decentralized social video platform utilizing the App Protocol, aiming to allow for openness and integration across various social applications. By leveraging the App Protocol, Stream.Place can implement features that promote user interaction and community engagement, such as following users, notifications, and raids. The App Protocol's architecture allows for a more cohesive user experience, further supporting the decentralized ethos by ensuring users maintain ownership of their content. This strategy positions Stream.Place to cater to a growing demand for decentralized social experiences while maintaining the consumer familiarity found with traditional platforms.
Challenges with Monetization and Revenue Models
One of the critical challenges in building decentralized platforms like Stream.Place is figuring out sustainable revenue models while maintaining affordable services for creators. The podcast discusses micropayments as a potential solution, enabling financial interactions such as tips and subscriptions between creators and users without being overly reliant on traditional advertising. Acknowledging the high operational costs involved in live video streaming, Eli highlights the need for innovative approaches to financial sustainability, particularly within the App Protocol ecosystem. As nebulous as the intersection of micropayments and cryptocurrencies may seem, a collaborative effort across the ecosystem is key to develop viable solutions.
Future of Decentralized Social Media
The podcast concludes with a forward-looking perspective on the evolution of social media, particularly within the decentralized landscape. Eli posits that the recent upheavals in traditional social platforms underline the necessity for infrastructures not beholden to any single entity. The goal is to create an environment where users control their data and experience seamless interaction between various decentralized apps. Looking ahead, the development of decentralized networks may cultivate an ecosystem characterized by interoperability and sustainable content creation, leading to a more equitable online experience for both creators and consumers.
This week we're joined by Eli Mallon, founder of Streamplace, a decentralized video streaming platform. In this episode we discuss the future of decentralized video streaming, the challenges of building a new platform, and how developers can leverage Streamplace's tools. We also go into Atproto, the decentralized social media network that stream place is built on.
