Often when people think of decentralized webs, they are thinking of bittorrent or tor, or of decentralized webs running on top of traditional web infrastructure

Often when people think of decentralized webs, they are thinking of bittorrent or tor, or of decentralized webs running on top of traditional web infrastructure, being used in conventional web kinds of ways. But decentralized webs need not resemble the www. Decentralized webs are radically different. For me a big part of decentralized webs is people using computers in person, in real life spaces, to share and interact with information. Much of the information will be transmitted in very shallow ways, via home routers and built in wireless hardware, over local networks. People sharing personal files, photos, videos, work documents and using decentralized web applications, together in person or over small, local networks. The decentralized web could be a huge boon to local economies. For example, imagine a band that plays monthly at a local theater. When you go to a show, they release a new song over the local network, via p2p sharing protocols. Assume that people like the band, and that this is a world where people are familiar with using these kinds of applications. The experience of getting new content will provide additional incentive for people to come to the show. If it is marketed well, the band and the theater will make money from increased turnout. I think this could be huge. The real question being asked here is: who pays for the world wide web if people aren't relying on it as much. Decentralized webs need not be world wide, though pockets of decentralized webs may interact with worldwide webs, they will not be inherently dependent on it, and will put draw far fewer of its resources. And in this sense, decentralized webs are paid for by their users when users buy hardware. Much more than users pay for centralized webs. Maybe there is an argument to be made that software application industries, like the web, somehow incentivize hardware manufacturing. This is probably the case to a degree. For decentralized hardware applications to carry the give people the same incentive to buy hardware as centralized applications do, they are going to need to be dependable and usable by all different kinds of people. If decentralized web applications are an uphill battle for people, then users won't buy hardware with the intention of using it in a decentralized way.