Introducing the Network: Our Launch Story
Laurynas Karvelis · A new chapter is about to begin. It's been almost 3 years since I started developing Zero Ad Network, and the idea had been taking shape for years before that. I've always felt that the web's financial incentives were off. There had to be a better way to pay creators while letting people enjoy content made with their interests in mind.
Two years ago and now
There I was, 2 years ago, rambling about this long-held idea to my girlfriend, who is now my wife. She encouraged me to pursue it and make it work.
After some quick experiments with the Google Chrome extension API and digital signatures, I realised it was possible. A central platform could sign a token on a user's behalf, and a website's server could verify it.
Working on it on and off, I managed to build a stable platform, a Chrome browser extension and an initial server module for Node.js.
The result is the zeroad.network platform you see here:
- Chrome browser extension
- Frontend app
- API telemetry app
- Node.js package
- Docs & Blog site
- Demo site
For the technically curious
The tools and runtimes used:
- Bun and Hono for the apps
- TypeScript, Sass, Pug, Eta and shell scripts
- GitHub Actions for CI/CD
- Cloudflare Tunnels to take some load off my server
- Alpine Linux & Docker Compose to host
- Cloudflare Tunnel & Caddy to serve
- PostgreSQL and Redis to store
- BullMQ to queue
- Stripe to receive and pay
- Docusaurus to communicate with you here.
Let me know what you think!
Find me on social media to share your thoughts or say hi!
More to come!