4 ms·

We are in this "decentralized" web, is just that the giants have a habit into buying out anything becoming remotely popular. Think end game capitalism. Capital

We are in this "decentralized" web, is just that the giants have a habit into buying out anything becoming remotely popular. Think end game capitalism. Capital amalgamation. In fact, any modern corporation will be buying as many smaller parts as they can, and regularly firing 10-20% of the people every year (cisco , etc). So then, the problem isn't in the "centralized" web.

jamespitts 9y ago
Due to efficiencies of scale and network effects, centralization may seem inevitable. However, we can structurally offset some of this tendency using crypto-economics.
- Barrin92 9y ago
  I think this is the fundamentally wrong angle, balkanisation and "decentralisation" don't actually seem to help end consumers and don't seem transparent. The logical conclusion when scale and centralisation are inevitable is the good old concept of a "public utility", see Bell Labs, electricity networks, and so forth. Doesn't sound as exciting because there's no "ether" or "crypto" in it but it has served most people quite well
  - quickben 9y ago
    For the stuff that works, i.e. electricity as an invention. But if you need to continue innovating, fragmented ecosystem > one entity. Prime example being: what have 7B people invented, vs , what has UN (as their one face) invented.
    - Barrin92 9y ago
      I don't know what to make of that analogy, but why not stick to the historical example I gave, Bell Labs has invented a good deal of things, as has the military (which I guess can be thought of as a utility of sorts) and the telecommunications sector. For fundamental and 'deep' research the public sector is doing a pretty good job. I'm skeptical about selling every chat app and toy as "innovation".
      - gardnr 9y ago
        In fifty years people will look back on this thread and note that we were still debating ideas from such radical ends of the spectrum. I don't know how it will turn out but I have not heard much about your communist internet. I don't mean that in a bad way it is just a useful analogy for me to think about internet as railroads, as the post office, the dmv. Something we need so much that we pay taxes to make sure it is there regardless of whether or not it is viable in a business sense. Then I realize that Bell Labs was not a public utility. It was an exceptional research project driven by exceptional people. Putting a power grid in the same category as Bell Labs is a fallacy. The nature of public institution stifles innovation. The ossified structure provides a safety which precludes the need for survival. Yes, we need the DMV but for fucks sake why do I have to wait in line for 6 hours once a year? How is the post office not profitable? Why are our trains so much slower than in other countries? What is it that you are imagining as good when you see us provisioning our computing resources from a government agency?
- losteric 9y ago
  I wonder how much centralization is due to consumer ISP and computing limitations. What structure would communication channels take in a world of phones with terabytes of local storage, days of battery life under heavy use, and reliable unlimited high-speed internet? Non-corporate software alternatives are getting there, but the next bottle-neck is operation. A simple static personal website still involves hosting "in the cloud" or setting up personal hardware, and operations. Mass adoption requires a 1-click 0-maintenance app.
  - PeanutCurry 9y ago
    I think computing limitations is the big one but also software limitations in terms of how much software a company might need to develop for itself to compete with a big player. Right now there's a lot of innovation going on. Not that there won't always be innovation, but in the grand scheme of time I'd argue web-tech will one day reach a state of the art that progresses more incrementally in the way that fields like physics, biology, etc. tend to with of waves of small insights rather than the few decades of rapid evolution they underwent in their infancy. It's at that point of incremental innovation for web-tech where I think little guys become competitive because that's where they can start smaller businesses running cheap but 'good enough' hardware and premade open-source software to provide similar services to the big players albeit at smaller margins to provide comparable but less comprehensive products for cheaper. These smaller businesses are where I imagine the decentralization manifesting. Especially if some of those businesses are things like "Join our regional hardware co-op and contribute your unused processing power to our service in exchange for a share of the profit". That would be huge on its own for de-centralization, if a profitable service could bring anybody and everybody a worthwhile amount of money for simply running their web-service software during downtime.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  It's not inevitable. Centralization is a side effect of the CFAA and copyright laws. The reason that people aren't able to read Facebook on a user's behalf and multiplex the feed into a competing network is because Facebook will sue you and the FBI may arrest you if you do this. As such, users are denied true competitive freedom to say "I prefer the way that NewThing does stuff". They instead have to say "I prefer NewThing, but my social graph is held hostage by Facebook." I won't say anything in particular about network effects because it's usually taken the wrong way, but there's no reason any of this lock-in has to exist on the digital web. We've chosen it by giving extremely strong legal protections to existing tech incumbents.
  - quickben 9y ago
    Network effects will sooner be broken by a legal, than a technical solution.
narrator 9y ago
The big guys get capital for next to nothing from the public markets so they can buy out the small guys who challenge their control. They can even run the bought businesses badly and still make a profit because the money they used to buy them was so cheap.
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  Plus the nasty fact that being huge and global means you can afford implementing the most effective tax evasion schemes. If a significantly lower tax rate means having to open up an office with a thousand employees in country X, then that is simply what's done, because it is cheaper than paying taxes.

jamespitts 9y ago

Due to efficiencies of scale and network effects, centralization may seem inevitable. However, we can structurally offset some of this tendency using crypto-economics.

Barrin92 9y ago
I think this is the fundamentally wrong angle, balkanisation and "decentralisation" don't actually seem to help end consumers and don't seem transparent. The logical conclusion when scale and centralisation are inevitable is the good old concept of a "public utility", see Bell Labs, electricity networks, and so forth. Doesn't sound as exciting because there's no "ether" or "crypto" in it but it has served most people quite well
- quickben 9y ago
  For the stuff that works, i.e. electricity as an invention. But if you need to continue innovating, fragmented ecosystem > one entity. Prime example being: what have 7B people invented, vs , what has UN (as their one face) invented.
  - Barrin92 9y ago
    I don't know what to make of that analogy, but why not stick to the historical example I gave, Bell Labs has invented a good deal of things, as has the military (which I guess can be thought of as a utility of sorts) and the telecommunications sector. For fundamental and 'deep' research the public sector is doing a pretty good job. I'm skeptical about selling every chat app and toy as "innovation".
    - gardnr 9y ago
      In fifty years people will look back on this thread and note that we were still debating ideas from such radical ends of the spectrum. I don't know how it will turn out but I have not heard much about your communist internet. I don't mean that in a bad way it is just a useful analogy for me to think about internet as railroads, as the post office, the dmv. Something we need so much that we pay taxes to make sure it is there regardless of whether or not it is viable in a business sense. Then I realize that Bell Labs was not a public utility. It was an exceptional research project driven by exceptional people. Putting a power grid in the same category as Bell Labs is a fallacy. The nature of public institution stifles innovation. The ossified structure provides a safety which precludes the need for survival. Yes, we need the DMV but for fucks sake why do I have to wait in line for 6 hours once a year? How is the post office not profitable? Why are our trains so much slower than in other countries? What is it that you are imagining as good when you see us provisioning our computing resources from a government agency?
losteric 9y ago
I wonder how much centralization is due to consumer ISP and computing limitations. What structure would communication channels take in a world of phones with terabytes of local storage, days of battery life under heavy use, and reliable unlimited high-speed internet? Non-corporate software alternatives are getting there, but the next bottle-neck is operation. A simple static personal website still involves hosting "in the cloud" or setting up personal hardware, and operations. Mass adoption requires a 1-click 0-maintenance app.
- PeanutCurry 9y ago
  I think computing limitations is the big one but also software limitations in terms of how much software a company might need to develop for itself to compete with a big player. Right now there's a lot of innovation going on. Not that there won't always be innovation, but in the grand scheme of time I'd argue web-tech will one day reach a state of the art that progresses more incrementally in the way that fields like physics, biology, etc. tend to with of waves of small insights rather than the few decades of rapid evolution they underwent in their infancy. It's at that point of incremental innovation for web-tech where I think little guys become competitive because that's where they can start smaller businesses running cheap but 'good enough' hardware and premade open-source software to provide similar services to the big players albeit at smaller margins to provide comparable but less comprehensive products for cheaper. These smaller businesses are where I imagine the decentralization manifesting. Especially if some of those businesses are things like "Join our regional hardware co-op and contribute your unused processing power to our service in exchange for a share of the profit". That would be huge on its own for de-centralization, if a profitable service could bring anybody and everybody a worthwhile amount of money for simply running their web-service software during downtime.
cookiecaper 9y ago
It's not inevitable. Centralization is a side effect of the CFAA and copyright laws. The reason that people aren't able to read Facebook on a user's behalf and multiplex the feed into a competing network is because Facebook will sue you and the FBI may arrest you if you do this. As such, users are denied true competitive freedom to say "I prefer the way that NewThing does stuff". They instead have to say "I prefer NewThing, but my social graph is held hostage by Facebook." I won't say anything in particular about network effects because it's usually taken the wrong way, but there's no reason any of this lock-in has to exist on the digital web. We've chosen it by giving extremely strong legal protections to existing tech incumbents.
- quickben 9y ago
  Network effects will sooner be broken by a legal, than a technical solution.

narrator 9y ago

The big guys get capital for next to nothing from the public markets so they can buy out the small guys who challenge their control. They can even run the bought businesses badly and still make a profit because the money they used to buy them was so cheap.

Freak_NL 9y ago
Plus the nasty fact that being huge and global means you can afford implementing the most effective tax evasion schemes. If a significantly lower tax rate means having to open up an office with a thousand employees in country X, then that is simply what's done, because it is cheaper than paying taxes.