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It mystifies me that people seem to think users will suddenly start caring about decentralization and privacy. If either of those things is your social network'

It mystifies me that people seem to think users will suddenly start caring about decentralization and privacy. If either of those things is your social network's USP, you're sunk.

captainmuon 11y ago
Decentralization is more powerful than you think. If I open a social network that is just like Facebook, it will go under. But if it is also properly decentralized (=federated), meaning you can have account at my site but interact with every Facebook user as if you had an account there, Facebook immediately looses it's network effect. And if I offer an additional silly feature, say let users customize the color of their home page, my decentralized net is at an advantage. Unfortunately, Facebook explicitly forbids that kind of interaction, of course. I see two options how decentralized nets could win: 1) Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate (makes sense if you argue that FB has become infrastructure) or without that: 2) Lots of people try to build federated sites, and fail... but one day, Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace, and one of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance.
- amelius 11y ago
  > Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate This could happen faster than you might think. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ([1]) just needs some updating to current technological standards. Quoted: > Interconnectedness. Since communications services exhibit network effects and positive externalities, new entrants would face barriers to entry if they could not interconnect their networks with those of the incumbent carriers. Thus, another key provision of the 1996 Act sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks with one another, imposing additional requirements on the incumbents because they might desire to restrict competitive entry by denying such interconnection or by setting terms, conditions, and rates that could undermine the ability of the new entrants to compete. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
  - Chris2048 11y ago
    Centralised SNs is probably a boon for NSA etc, so I doubt the US will be eager to make new laws. FB is prism for free.
  - mxuribe 11y ago
    I'm not so optimistic here. To my knowledge if it hasn't been changed to force interconnectedness of email, I doubt it will be changed only to force interconnectedness of social networks like FB. But i guess we'll see.
    - throwanem 11y ago
      Why would it need to be changed to force interconnectedness of email? Email has always been federated.
- markvdb 11y ago
  2) "One of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance" is not going to happen. Interesting reading material: http://benkler.org/Pub.html http://benkler.org/Pub.html .
- tdkl 11y ago
  > Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace That is already happening. The majority is there only because of the messaging aspect. A whole plethora of messaging services are gaining traffic. Next thing that follow in them is "smart AI" for content with "bots" and then we'll reinvent what Asian messengers already offer for years. But convincing an user of $chat with decentralization and federation is laughable, until : 1) he gets a good reason for current $chat to not be as good, 2) his network flocks away to something else. Don't want to be pissing on anyone's parade here, but this Akasha Project is currently putting a cart before the horse.
MihaiAlisie 11y ago
I agree that not everyone cares about these sort of things. However there are still people out there that do care and now those people will have an alternative. For those that do not care about the decentralized/freedom of speech/privacy aspects embedded in our app we think they might find it interesting thanks to the way good content and thoughtful commentary can generate "real money" rather than "points". For those that don't care about the money either and just want a nice user experience without being bombarded with spam and ads, we think that they might find it attractive thanks to the clean and intuitive UX/UI we designed. We don't like ads either and we're set on experimenting with alternative business models made possible by cryptocurrencies in general in the pursuit for a sustainable social media network model that doesn't rely on ads. Then, there's also the people that actually create and do things such as writers, artists and activists. They might appreciate AKASHA for different reasons as it allows them to connect more directly with their fan base/followers by-passing in the process some of the blocks that come in various forms on Web 2.0 platforms.

It mystifies me that people seem to think users will suddenly start caring about decentralization and privacy. If either of those things is your social network's USP, you're sunk.

captainmuon 11y ago

Decentralization is more powerful than you think. If I open a social network that is just like Facebook, it will go under. But if it is also properly decentralized (=federated), meaning you can have account at my site but interact with every Facebook user as if you had an account there, Facebook immediately looses it's network effect. And if I offer an additional silly feature, say let users customize the color of their home page, my decentralized net is at an advantage. Unfortunately, Facebook explicitly forbids that kind of interaction, of course. I see two options how decentralized nets could win: 1) Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate (makes sense if you argue that FB has become infrastructure) or without that: 2) Lots of people try to build federated sites, and fail... but one day, Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace, and one of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance.

amelius 11y ago
> Legislation that forces large sites like Facebook to federate This could happen faster than you might think. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ([1]) just needs some updating to current technological standards. Quoted: > Interconnectedness. Since communications services exhibit network effects and positive externalities, new entrants would face barriers to entry if they could not interconnect their networks with those of the incumbent carriers. Thus, another key provision of the 1996 Act sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks with one another, imposing additional requirements on the incumbents because they might desire to restrict competitive entry by denying such interconnection or by setting terms, conditions, and rates that could undermine the ability of the new entrants to compete. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
- Chris2048 11y ago
  Centralised SNs is probably a boon for NSA etc, so I doubt the US will be eager to make new laws. FB is prism for free.
- mxuribe 11y ago
  I'm not so optimistic here. To my knowledge if it hasn't been changed to force interconnectedness of email, I doubt it will be changed only to force interconnectedness of social networks like FB. But i guess we'll see.
  - throwanem 11y ago
    Why would it need to be changed to force interconnectedness of email? Email has always been federated.
markvdb 11y ago
2) "One of the decentralized contenders happens to be the new Facebook by chance" is not going to happen. Interesting reading material: http://benkler.org/Pub.html http://benkler.org/Pub.html .
tdkl 11y ago
> Facebook goes the way of Yahoo and MySpace That is already happening. The majority is there only because of the messaging aspect. A whole plethora of messaging services are gaining traffic. Next thing that follow in them is "smart AI" for content with "bots" and then we'll reinvent what Asian messengers already offer for years. But convincing an user of $chat with decentralization and federation is laughable, until : 1) he gets a good reason for current $chat to not be as good, 2) his network flocks away to something else. Don't want to be pissing on anyone's parade here, but this Akasha Project is currently putting a cart before the horse.

MihaiAlisie 11y ago

I agree that not everyone cares about these sort of things. However there are still people out there that do care and now those people will have an alternative. For those that do not care about the decentralized/freedom of speech/privacy aspects embedded in our app we think they might find it interesting thanks to the way good content and thoughtful commentary can generate "real money" rather than "points". For those that don't care about the money either and just want a nice user experience without being bombarded with spam and ads, we think that they might find it attractive thanks to the clean and intuitive UX/UI we designed. We don't like ads either and we're set on experimenting with alternative business models made possible by cryptocurrencies in general in the pursuit for a sustainable social media network model that doesn't rely on ads. Then, there's also the people that actually create and do things such as writers, artists and activists. They might appreciate AKASHA for different reasons as it allows them to connect more directly with their fan base/followers by-passing in the process some of the blocks that come in various forms on Web 2.0 platforms.