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Don't forget that for email to get popular, it had to be mostly centralized (Hotmail, Gmail, etc), we are lucky it's still at least federated. Bitcoin, same st

by sukilot 10y ago

Don't forget that for email to get popular, it had to be mostly centralized (Hotmail, Gmail, etc), we are lucky it's still at least federated. Bitcoin, same story -- mass adoption turns out to be dependent on service providers hosting the wallet, and most users are not miners, eroding many of the decentralization benefits.

EGreg 10y ago
I mean decentralized in the same way the Web and Email are decentralized. Not all the way to the end-user nodes, but to the servers. Any number of people can bring up as many new servers as they want, and they control the server and what's on it. In our Platform that corresponds to Communities. An end-user can have accounts in an unlimited number of communities and seamlessly use their identity and contacts across communities and widgets, even on the same page. For example a dentist can include a Maps widget and the user can get directions while the maps widget knows the user's address and the dentist knows his medical history and both can display it to him on the same page instantly without either one knowing the other's info. It does this using iframes. I also mean enabling decentralized networking topologies, eg collaborating on a document without the signal having to go to Google Docs, or planning get-togethers and coordinating efforts in your African village via running various social apps on the the local network. That's the type of decentralization that is actually useful.
adrusi 10y ago
There's still a lot of value in a mostly centralized network operating on a protocol designed for a decentralized one. That means that people who want to opt out of centralization can, and it limits the walled garden effect.
rlpb 10y ago
Don't forget that for email to get popular, it had to be mostly centralized (Hotmail, Gmail, etc)... I'm not so sure. Before Hotmail and Gmail, every ISP provided email accounts to its customers. Desktop POP3 clients were the norm, and email was as popular as the Internet was. Centralization wasn't needed for email popularity. Hotmail, Gmail etc. have now taken over, perhaps partly due to the economy of scale in dealing with the spam problem. But the smaller players are still present and working, so I'm not sure that email would fail without today's major providers.
- flukus 10y ago
  And most companies still maintain their own mail servers, I'd say the majority of email is through decentralized servers.

by sukilot 10y ago

EGreg 10y ago

I mean decentralized in the same way the Web and Email are decentralized. Not all the way to the end-user nodes, but to the servers. Any number of people can bring up as many new servers as they want, and they control the server and what's on it. In our Platform that corresponds to Communities. An end-user can have accounts in an unlimited number of communities and seamlessly use their identity and contacts across communities and widgets, even on the same page. For example a dentist can include a Maps widget and the user can get directions while the maps widget knows the user's address and the dentist knows his medical history and both can display it to him on the same page instantly without either one knowing the other's info. It does this using iframes. I also mean enabling decentralized networking topologies, eg collaborating on a document without the signal having to go to Google Docs, or planning get-togethers and coordinating efforts in your African village via running various social apps on the the local network. That's the type of decentralization that is actually useful.

adrusi 10y ago

There's still a lot of value in a mostly centralized network operating on a protocol designed for a decentralized one. That means that people who want to opt out of centralization can, and it limits the walled garden effect.

rlpb 10y ago

Don't forget that for email to get popular, it had to be mostly centralized (Hotmail, Gmail, etc)... I'm not so sure. Before Hotmail and Gmail, every ISP provided email accounts to its customers. Desktop POP3 clients were the norm, and email was as popular as the Internet was. Centralization wasn't needed for email popularity. Hotmail, Gmail etc. have now taken over, perhaps partly due to the economy of scale in dealing with the spam problem. But the smaller players are still present and working, so I'm not sure that email would fail without today's major providers.

flukus 10y ago
And most companies still maintain their own mail servers, I'd say the majority of email is through decentralized servers.