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Comment by TheSpiceIsLife | Hacker News Reader

How can internet connectivity be free?

Doesn’t someone need to pay for a connection?

To answer my own question, as per the FAQ:

Volk Fi counts data usage and bytes shared via WiFi. Every user gets the amount they share, unlimited. If a Volk user consumes more data than they share in a month, there is a 5GB data cap. After that, the user can pay the super cheap price of $1/GB for additional data.

I would love for this to be just an app on a standard Android device.

I would gladly pay with Bitcoin on the Lightning network to get internet access, but the market is not ready yet.

Apparently because their special phones have "new, long-range radio hardware" that makes this all possible.

But radio technologies are pretty widely understood and while I'm no expert I've not heard of anything that could achieve what they're suggesting. So I'll remain skeptical until I understand better what that "long-range radio hardware" is and how it makes such a mesh network feasible.

Ah, yet another carrier offering Unlimited* data.

So as someone who starts out with a YC '19 * Volk Fi phone, your sharing will be at 0, and therefore immediately subject to a 5GB data cap with $1/gb afterward.

Uh huh. In the old days, we called this a "Multilevel Marketing scam".

(And the best part is that I would pay for my own internet line, AND pay for my phone use use my internet line.)

* https://igamerss.com/index.php/2019/03/19/here-are-the-85-st...

"Volk Wi-fi: Volk is making an Android smartphone with a free information plan, no service required. The co-founders say they’re utilizing long-range wi-fi to share connections and construct a community of telephones. Co-Founder Greg Hazel was the Chief Architect at Bittorrent, whereas co-founder Straya Markovic was the lead engineer at mesh messaging platform Firechat."

I'm a bit puzzled about this: how do they plan to enforce such a cap in a distributed network? Doesn't this require distributed trust (about multiple users accounting the usage of each client)? Or are they assuming that the network will only consist of their phones running their unmodified software, so each phone can be trusted to do their accounting honestly?

Perhaps you only need to do the accounting at the exit nodes? That means you only need to trust the exit nodes, and identities included in the packets.

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