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Bigger problem with centralized services is stifling monoculture. There will never be 10 different frontends to Facebook the way there can be 10 different email

by DenisM 8y ago

Bigger problem with centralized services is stifling monoculture. There will never be 10 different frontends to Facebook the way there can be 10 different email clients. Or 10 different newsfeed sorting algorithms. It’s the same problem that Amazon has - one size does not fit all in UX, and one decision maker, even if very smart and well-meaning, will sooner or later get himself into a corner and be stuck there.

kiriakasis 8y ago
But one could say the same for a monoculture of protocols in decentralized systems, the email protocol has been stable for a long time and has some serious issues due to its decentralized nature. For emails it is surely worth, but for many other application it might be different.
- DenisM 8y ago
  That’s true - federated systems, unlike monoliths, suck at protocol and this capability evolution. But think about what it means for a minute! If one figured out protocol evolution or migration might be all it takes to give federated systems prominence.
- 18pfsmt 8y ago
  >monoculture of protocols in decentralized systems Can you compare SMTP, NNTP, ActivityPub, XMPP, ATOM, Scuttlebut (SSB), to make your point clearer?
- ghthor 8y ago
  If you attach a signed monetary transaction cost using a decentralized smart contract transaction system to sending email to a federated host I hypothesize that spam would start dwindling. Email, IMO, largely grew into a centralized system due to the difficulties in combating spam. From the receiving end where filtering and blacklisting is a major system administration task. Self hosting also requires high quality SRE skills to combat servers from being compromised and used to flood the federated network with spam. Make the act of sending a message cost the send or money and I think spam goes away and self hosting becomes much simpler.
  - eropple 8y ago
    > Make the act of sending a message cost the send or money and I think spam goes away and self hosting becomes much simpler. ...and the service itself becomes less useful to everybody who doesn't want to self-host. If you choose to off-road, you can't really complain about it being bumpy.
austincheney 8y ago
I suppose I did not list this because it is a social factor rather than a technical factor and I simply wasn't thinking in those terms. This is a major point though. I spent time at Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia. All three companies were (not any more) direct competitors based in far away geographies. Regardless of that I was utterly astonished by how similar the work cultures and technology were. Everything was being run from archaic centralized giant monolithic Java applications using nearly identical technology stacks and it was always an incredibly slow and painful experience to update, extend, or maintain the beast. The business solution was always the same: hire more developers until market conditions present financial barriers.

by DenisM 8y ago

kiriakasis 8y ago

But one could say the same for a monoculture of protocols in decentralized systems, the email protocol has been stable for a long time and has some serious issues due to its decentralized nature. For emails it is surely worth, but for many other application it might be different.

DenisM 8y ago
That’s true - federated systems, unlike monoliths, suck at protocol and this capability evolution. But think about what it means for a minute! If one figured out protocol evolution or migration might be all it takes to give federated systems prominence.
18pfsmt 8y ago
>monoculture of protocols in decentralized systems Can you compare SMTP, NNTP, ActivityPub, XMPP, ATOM, Scuttlebut (SSB), to make your point clearer?
ghthor 8y ago
If you attach a signed monetary transaction cost using a decentralized smart contract transaction system to sending email to a federated host I hypothesize that spam would start dwindling. Email, IMO, largely grew into a centralized system due to the difficulties in combating spam. From the receiving end where filtering and blacklisting is a major system administration task. Self hosting also requires high quality SRE skills to combat servers from being compromised and used to flood the federated network with spam. Make the act of sending a message cost the send or money and I think spam goes away and self hosting becomes much simpler.
- eropple 8y ago
  > Make the act of sending a message cost the send or money and I think spam goes away and self hosting becomes much simpler. ...and the service itself becomes less useful to everybody who doesn't want to self-host. If you choose to off-road, you can't really complain about it being bumpy.

austincheney 8y ago

I suppose I did not list this because it is a social factor rather than a technical factor and I simply wasn't thinking in those terms. This is a major point though. I spent time at Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia. All three companies were (not any more) direct competitors based in far away geographies. Regardless of that I was utterly astonished by how similar the work cultures and technology were. Everything was being run from archaic centralized giant monolithic Java applications using nearly identical technology stacks and it was always an incredibly slow and painful experience to update, extend, or maintain the beast. The business solution was always the same: hire more developers until market conditions present financial barriers.