Lessons from building multiplayer browsers

alejandrohacks

I finally wrote something about my time at sail/muddy, the last startup I was at, where we were trying to build a multiplayer browser, and a few lessons that stayed with me. I mostly just hope it’s interesting to people thinking about new ambitious interfaces right now. with AI.

dimes

I also built a canvas-based, multiplayer product during the pandemic (ohyay). The product was social-event focused (classes, festivals, etc.) so we focused on multiplayer audio-video experiences rather than general purpose browsing. One of my favorite memories was when someone used our collaborative YouTube playback to set up a karaoke room. WebRTC added a little latency, but it was close enough to work.

tekacs

I would be curious what you think of the idea of Sail and Muddy being... small. Technically complex, but small in the mind of the user. Not lacking in features (you talked about that), but 'feeling small/bounded, and therefore with small divergence' to the user. Does that... fit at all with your mental model of them? I ask because I feel like Linear, Vercel, Figma, Notion, hell even Airtable... landed 'big' (felt like a big step change) with users when they arrived for most (I was a super super early user of Notion because my friend angel invested). I used Sail and Muddy back when and... the small vs big distinction feels like my perception of the divergence between those things that get washed out by this effect and those that don't. (also DM-ed you!)

loa_in_

One of the best interactive designs of the future I keep wishing were fleshed out is Eagle Mode . : https://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/