Thank you for these 
joeb
f0rest8
It’s been a long journey and this is a big update. I think also you may want to split this post into a new thread and close this thread?
June 2024
metamorphic.app closes down
This has been in my mind for some time but after more discussions I’ve decided to officially shut down metamorphic.app and the Metamorphic name/brand. A few of the reasons were that I had never been able to secure the .com for the website, the name itself and length made it difficult to share with people, and Facebook rebranding itself as Meta felt rather unfortunate. It never really felt like itself.
I want to thank everyone that gave it a try or checked it out. The latest version of Metamorphic that was running did not have any active users outside of myself and few close friends and family. So I decided to give everything a clean start and delete all the data rather than try to move anything over to the new service. What this means is that if you had signed up for Metamorphic in the past, any data that that may have created is gone — including any data from Stripe as well. There are no email addresses or anything else lingering around anywhere (e.g. Stripe customer emails).
Metamorphic → Mosslet
Mosslet has replaced Metamorphic. This felt like a fresh start where it could become its own thing for people with its own identity. The parent company that I co-founded with my cousin and father is called Moss Piglet and so mosslet felt like a little critter, a little water bear if you will. It also fit with our logo that we had already designed which made making this switch affordable for me, since Mosslet is 100% bootstrapped.
Trials and tribulations
I think I’ve rebuilt this service 4 times now, with each new version improving on the last. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be able to devote the time that I have and energy to this journey and to making Mosslet a reality.
But my dream for Mosslet has not been without difficulty. Making something that provides features that could by themselves each be their own service (Memories → Instagram, Posts → Twitter…), as a solo developer, is hard. Especially as a majority of my experience as a programmer, and all of my experience in Elixir, is through my journey with Mosslet.
There’s been difficulty working with asymmetric encryption and creating breezy experiences for people. I’ve had to remind myself that that difficulty for me is the whole point of the service and goal, hard for me and easy for the customer. This is compounded by the difficulty of life events outside of the programming world that at times have been incredibly distracting.
So, when combining that distraction with moving fast, I would often make mistakes (I think our last metamorphic.app bug was affecting subscription signups). Not only are moments like that embarrassing for me as a developer, they have a big negative effect on someone’s experience (and perception). Staying positive through that, learning from those mistakes, and moving forward has been hard but essential to my initial intention I set almost 5 years ago — to make a privacy-first social alternative.
The economic effect
It’s becoming less controversial to acknowledge that there have been negative consequences to the past century’s economic order. The effect of bringing something from nature into the market as a commodity. Today, there’s a new evolution of that economic order and it essentially brings something from our humanity into the market as a commodity. And there are negative effects.
I remind myself of this each time I question why I’m making Mosslet or whenever I wonder if making something like Mosslet even matters. And certainly in some ways it doesn’t, but in others I think it still does. And perhaps all that matters is that there are still people who share with me that they want a service like Mosslet and are willing to pay for it.
Mosslet’s tech
Mosslet is running on fly.io. We’re currently in the sea and bos area of the United States. I’m trying to balance the cost of running the service with demand and performance. So, if you’re outside one of those regions and experiencing slow speeds, I want to hear from you and change that.
Our hardware is a primary and 3 read replicas and currently looks like this:
- server: 4 machines • performance-cpu-2x@16384MB
- database: 4 machines • performance-cpu-2x@4096MB
Some of the software libraries that are helping, beyond the standard superheroes of Erlang/OTP, Elixir, Phoenix, LiveView, Ecto setup:
- cloak and cloak_ecto → for at-rest symmetric encryption
- dns_cluster → for clustering
- enacl → for our asymmetric encryption needs
- fly_postgres → for our distributed read/writes on fly.io
- image → for help with our image processing
- ex_aws and ex_aws_s3 → we use to send out to our object storage provider Storj
- live_select → for our dropdown select components for selecting groups or people to share/connect with
- nimble_totp and eqrcode → for two-factor authentication
- oban → job processing
- petal.build → we use parts of their framework and components (sometimes customized for our specific needs)
- stripity_stripe → for Stripe subscriptions and payments
- swoosh → for emails
- zxcvbn → for checking password strength
Changelog
- each Memory, Post, and Group has its own unique key per user it’s shared with (e.g. if one Post’s key were to be compromised, it would not be able to decrypt any other Posts)
- photos are loaded asynchronously (e.g. Memories and avatars) to improve page loading speeds and UX
- now supports sharing Posts and Memories with a Group
- non-connected Mosslet members can be in the same Group (via a mutual connection) while still maintaining their privacy
- forgot password feature — turning this on in your settings enables the ability to reset your password if you forget it (off by default) — can be toggled on/off at any time
- updating your settings now automatically updates your profile (if its a relevant setting) — e.g. if you update your username, your profile link and info will automatically update to reflect the change
- updated the password error message to include more helpful suggestions on creating a password
On the horizon
There is a huge list of things on the horizon for Mosslet but one of the more pressing items is making public Memories available.
Currently, you can only share Memories with people you’re connected with, privately for yourself, or with a Group. Once public Memories are available, then you could have them on your profile page, making them viewable to yourself, your connections, and/or the world.
The main thing holding me back from releasing public Memories is figuring out how to effectively moderate them for safety. I’ve been looking at the AI developments in Elixir, which have been exciting and awesome to say the least, and I’m leaning toward that for safe image processing.
I recently did a quick test to see if an existing model could correctly detect nsfw images and discovered that it would require some more work (it was classifying safe images as unsafe). But I think this is the way forward for making public Memories available.
Mosslet in beta
Today Mosslet is in beta and is only available for personal use (family/business accounts in the future). I’m currently using it with close friends and family. But anyone that signs up while we’re in beta gets 60% off their subscription for life (you’ll see the discount coupon code on the site).
My hope is that you’ll share with us what works for you, what doesn’t, and what you would like to see, via support@mosslet.com, and help us continue to get better.
Thank you 
Mark
1
f0rest8
It’s been awhile since I’ve last posted but I’ve been steadily chugging along on Mosslet and redesigning things.
I’ve recently appreciated using Live View’s async features (start_async/4).
Updates
One of the biggest changes was combining Memories and Posts into one Timeline section and making it easier to share directly with a Connection when viewing their profile (or from your own profile). I’ve also currently disabled public sharing while we think about how we’d like to reshape it.
Another big change is that we decided to drop subscription pricing and make it a one-time payment for lifetime access to the service.
Along the way I’ve scaled down the hardware we’re using with Fly considerably and things still seem to be running smoothly for people accessing things on the east or west coast of the US (where we currently have servers). So, that’s been really exciting to see and I feel a testament to Elixir and the ecosystem.
Lots more improvements and changes to go, endless honestly, but this is the latest. It’s a lot of fun building in Elixir.
2
f0rest8
Hey hey 
We’ve just released v0.9.0 of Mosslet:
- encrypted rich text posts with Trix editor, including image support
- temporary removal of Memories feature (images are now included with Posts)
- I’m trying to figure out what our Memories feature might look like now that Posts can include images (or if we even want to have a separate Memories feature)
- you’ll still see the ability to delete any Memories from your settings
In celebration, and to say thank you to this community, I’ve created a coupon for 50% off for Elixir Forum that’s good forever: ELIXIRFORUM50
This can be redeemed when you sign up for a paid account after you’ve confirmed your email. We are currently in beta so we are already at a reduced temporary price, and this coupon will be applied on top of that.
I’ve been experimenting with how to make paying for a service like a privacy-first social network affordable and sustainable, and I’ve currently landed on a pay-once pricing model. So, bring some friends (otherwise there won’t be much for you to do) and use this code for a great price for the lifetime of your Mosslet account.
Beta considerations
As a reminder, we are in beta and it’s just me building everything, so please be patient and feel free to reach out via our support or on here. We have machines on the east and west coast of the US that are currently shared cpus, so your location to our machines could affect your experience — if that’s the case, please feel free to reach out and let me know (I’m trying to balance our growth with demand).
Since we’re in beta, things could change or you might run into a bug, and I’m actively incorporating user feedback into the development of our service. However, I can guarantee you that if you pay for our service and things change, you won’t have to pay again for it — also, your data is asymmetrically encrypted using public key cryptography and a password derived key (we use the enacl library). Everything is additionally symmetrically encrypted at rest in the database with the (cloak/cloak_ecto libraries).
This has been ~5 years in the making (previously was even called Metamorphic) and there’s a never-ending list of things I’d like to see, but our service isn’t going away. I did not build Mosslet for an exit or to try and raise money, it’s a service for people and my hope for a better digital world (at least a few more offerings out there that aren’t trying to exploit us in some way).
One last note, our service is much more of a social network than social media — in that it’s for sharing with people you know. There is no algorithm dictating what you see and don’t see, and we currently don’t allow public posts at the moment. You’ll hopefully be bored and get offline after sharing and find something else to do, that’s intentional.
Thanks and cheers
3
Exadra37
Joep
Exadra37
It works now.
MossLet name isn’t sound, the bit Let resembles a short for letting, and you don’t want people doing this association.
0
f0rest8
The name came from our parent company Moss Piglet (water bears, tardigrades) and the idea of a Mosslet being like a little Moss Piglet.
0