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If I want to view a web page that you've created, I go to a server which you control (or your ISP controls). I don't have to go to web.com and click through to
by anthonyb 17y ago
If I want to view a web page that you've created, I go to a server which you control (or your ISP controls). I don't have to go to web.com and click through to an account that you've created on the web.com service.
If I want to send you an email, I talk to my server, my server talks to your server, and you get an email in your inbox. Maybe I use GMail and you use Yahoo, but the underlying protocol is the same, so it doesn't matter.
Services like Facebook and Twitter have been written as a closed protocol right from the start, so you're not used to thinking of them in open or interoperable terms, but it looks like it's happening - it's just a question of time and the right impetus.
(Perhaps you're thinking of 'decentralised' as being able to host stuff on any computer in some sort of cloud, but I prefer to think of it as 'not controlled by any one entity' - maybe that's where some of the confusion is coming from?)
- gaius 17y agoRight, but you're forgetting one thing. Decentralized works for technical problems, not social problems. People fled from the decentralized alt.* on Usenet to centralized Lifejournal where they had more control over their experience. A decentralized social network would be a sewer.
- anthonyb 17y agoJust like a decentralised web or decentralised email? The idea is to have lots of smaller silos interoperating, rather than a couple of big ones. Just because it's decentralised, doesn't mean that you have to give up control of your bit.