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I don't think this is the future of the web. This sort of thing is a temporary blip before everybody figures out decentralised solutions for everything. Decen

I don't think this is the future of the web. This sort of thing is a temporary blip before everybody figures out decentralised solutions for everything. Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. A decentralised solution will continue to "just work", while centralised solutions continue to boot people off. It's pretty obvious which one is going to win.

adminu 8y ago
Until taking part in a decentralized system is a crime by itself due to potentially illegal content and your possession and distribution of that content. The distributed system does not stop to work then, but the user might risk punishment for using it, which might be even worse than not being able to use it.
- tapoxi 8y ago
  I've been thinking about running a Mastodon server so I'm in control of my social media, but I'm worried about letting anyone use it because of the GDPR.
- mirimir 8y ago
  When decentralized systems are illegal, only criminals will use them. Anonymously. And very likely, using your devices as botnet slaves. But pretty much, you get what you select for.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    That was the same with the cryptography export restrictions during the 90s.
  - vertexFarm 8y ago
    It will also drop the userbase below a useful threshold. Sure, there will be the technical possibility of still managing to use it illegally and undetected--but there will be no herd immunity, there will be no effects of scale that make the system particularly useful or affordable compared to proprietary, centralized, and more performant alternatives. People can and do still use bittorrent illegally, but it doesn't have even close to enough market share to make centralized streaming services nonexistent or non-competitive. Basically the same idea. The fact that you can't decentralize legislation and physical governance is not insignificant. You can't block the influence of preexisting powerful actors. Those factors do have the power to destroy the decentralization movement, and most likely will.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Some of us don't particularly want the "herd". The Internet was a better place before Eternal September. And it arguably would have become a far better place, without commercialization. Maybe those "powerful actors" could prevent decentralization from becoming mainstream, but they can't kill it. Consider marijuana, for example. Use has been demonized for decades by the US and its allies. But that didn't stop an appreciable fraction of the US population from using (or at least, trying). And now it's becoming legal in more and more states. For Internet decentralization, the driving factors will almost certainly be porn, gambling and prostitution. To the extent that they're driven off the clearnet, demand for them will fuel growth of alternatives. Freedom of expression is essential, of course, but it will be just a side benefit. The more decentralization is suppressed by "powerful actors", the more it will be dominated by other "powerful actors". That is, by organized crime.
simias 8y ago
Except looking at the past 20 years or so it seems clear that the trend is going the other way around. Slack itself is an example of that, not long ago it would've been a set of self-hosted tools. People have ditched IRC in favor of Discord and friends, they've ditched decentralized forums, BBSs and mailing lists for social networks, everybody hosts everything using the same four or five cloud providers, streaming and direct download is much more popular than BitTorrent etc... Maybe this trend will reverse eventually but I don't really see the signs yet. The Cryptocurrency crowd keeps shouting "decentralization" but they still fail to create applications that can compete with the centralized alternatives in terms of usability, performance and cost. There have been many attempts at making decentralized social networks but they failed to gain mainstream adoption. IPFS works pretty well but again, hardly anybody uses it. I'm all for decentralization but there's no denying that there seems to be a path of least resistance towards centralized solutions. They're easier to develop, easier to maintain, easier to upgrade and often easier to use. So for me decentralization is the objective, but unfortunately it's not "clearly the end game".
- uberswe 8y ago
  It will take time before decentralised services become mainstream. It's slow right now and we are still learning, we need things to be easier. The backend is basically figured out at this point and we need to focus a bit more on UX. Regarding torrents, many game clients will use torrents for their downloads, the user simply doesn't see and deal with the torrenting. Don't confuse self-hosted with decentralised, not the same :)
  - simias 8y ago
    >It will take time before decentralised services become mainstream. Again, this is looking at things backwards IMO. You seem to imply that there's a slow momentum from a centralized web to a decentralized one when in fact there's been a rather fast momentum in exactly the opposite direction over the past decades. To me what you're saying sounds like "horses are about to become a very common way of moving goods". Maybe you're right but merely looking at the trend it's clearly not going that way at all. >The backend is basically figured out at this point and we need to focus a bit more on UX. You'll have to tell me more specifically what you have in mind there because that sounds very optimistic to me. We've had decentralized "backends" for as long as we've had the internet. The web is mostly decentralized by design. Even DNS is distributed across plenty of authorities for the various TLDs (even if each of them is effectively centralized and not anybody can become an authority). Email is decentralized. BitTorrent is decentralized. IRC is decentralized. We're collectively moving away from these technologies, not towards them. I'm personally still a heavy user of all three of these things but it definitely feels niche now (email obviously isn't but self-hosted email is). >Regarding torrents, many game clients will use torrents for their downloads, the user simply doesn't see and deal with the torrenting. Which is pretty much irrelevant in this conversation then. It's about the technology people use to share content with each other, not about how Blizzard chooses to update your WoW client. It's a locked-down, vendor-approved way of distributing software from a centralized authority. >Don't confuse self-hosted with decentralised, not the same :) It's not the same but it's related. In general if something is truly decentralized then it becomes self-hostable otherwise it's more distributed than decentralized. Anybody can host their Bitcoin node, their Bittorent peer or their email server. I can't host a Facebook node.
pjc50 8y ago
Decentralisation has costs, and note that booting off ""disruptive"" users (however defined - spam, abuse) is an absolute necessity of running a communications service. These costs are part of why USENET died.
notyourday 8y ago
> I don't think this is the future of the web. This is the future of a centralized web with products, services and companies that people salaries to develop products and services. The decentralized internet utopia is dead. Stick a fork in it. It is a fringe populated by the modern equivalent of the grey beards of 1990s.
open-source-ux 8y ago
"..decentralised solutions for everything" It will never happen, at least not on a scale that will affect significant web traffic. There is another model, not decentralised but a practical middle-ground: the WordPress model. Consider the following: Wordpress is an example of a profitable open source app that can easily be installed on countless shared hosting platforms or on a VPS. It's easy to switch hosting providers when you want to (and to take your data with you). It's popularity means that one-click installs are widespread. Unfortunately, there is no common standard for software installation on the server side, and this lack of an easy installation process for everyone else severely limits self-hosting websites and apps. Many developers think deploying a server-side web app is a non-issue, or they erroneously think that installing Cloudron/providing Docker instances/typing command line instructions are all "easy". Have you seen the server deployment instructions for "web friendly" languages like Ruby and Python? It's ludicrously complicated. And still developers seen nothing wrong in such install procedures. It's so frustrating. I wish there was some momentum or traction in making server-side web app installation as universally simple as a one-click Wordpress install. It would also unlock countless opportunities for developers to reach more users or customers. But maybe some developers secretly prefer the complexity? It certainly makes selling a SaaS solution much more attractive over the stupidly complicated self-hosting option.
bookbinder 8y ago
> Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. Only techies care about decentralization. Most people would rather follow a Twitter feed rather than an RSS feed. Most would prefer a mega forum like Reddit rather than multiple, standalone forums with separate accounts. There are also network effects that give centralized platforms more of a competitive advantage. I keep hearing people talk about the need for decentralized social media, but nobody knows how to make it an attractive, viable option for the masses...especially when such a solution wouldn't be as profitable (or as frictionless) as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
lixtra 8y ago
I wish you were right. But so far the winner takes all effect and commercial benefits pushed most things to big companies. Even the archetype of decentralization, email, is being pushed to big players by spam control.
vertexFarm 8y ago
Controversial opinion incoming: decentralization isn't going to be a silver bullet that fundamentally solves anything. These services are still going to depend on large amounts of expensive hardware and infrastructure that must exist in the real world, much like cryptocurrency. That hardware is still vulnerable to control and influence from strong corporate or state actors, so the decentralized stuff running on them is always going to be under influence as well. Even with strong crypto, methods to manipulate it either directly or through side channels will be developed. It's absolutely inevitable. Somebody controls the power plants generating and pricing all that electricity, somebody owns the internet backbone hardware, somebody can afford a much higher hashrate, somebody controls tech legistlation, and somebody is on the bleeding edge of cyber-warfare with a DOD budget. Sure, some of the hardware will be in private ownership, but not the majority. If it ever becomes widespread enough to be of great significance, traditional power structures will absolutely contrive a way to seize it. What this all really does in the end is create a technical caste system and obfuscation of ownership. People fortunate enough to have access and be up to speed on the latest technology (or hire people who are) will reap the rewards of decentralized systems which still belong to authoritarian actors, yet it will be extremely difficult to prove that ownership--especially to laymen. It will always have a nice hazy deniability, and it will be almost impossible to hold anyone accountable for their actions, or prevent or even identify exploitation. This is absolutely the future of the web. Perpetual and stealthy non-neutral manipulation by the technically advanced and financially powerful is here to stay. I think that as engineers our tunnel vision and intellectual hubris have given us a false sense of security as we developed this hideous system, because we thought it was some kind of purely digital realm where we have real control and real comprehension of what we are doing. But nothing is purely digital. Everything is built on top of the real, analogue world where strong actors have already divvied up and taken ownership of everything.

adminu 8y ago

Until taking part in a decentralized system is a crime by itself due to potentially illegal content and your possession and distribution of that content. The distributed system does not stop to work then, but the user might risk punishment for using it, which might be even worse than not being able to use it.

tapoxi 8y ago
I've been thinking about running a Mastodon server so I'm in control of my social media, but I'm worried about letting anyone use it because of the GDPR.
mirimir 8y ago
When decentralized systems are illegal, only criminals will use them. Anonymously. And very likely, using your devices as botnet slaves. But pretty much, you get what you select for.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  That was the same with the cryptography export restrictions during the 90s.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  It will also drop the userbase below a useful threshold. Sure, there will be the technical possibility of still managing to use it illegally and undetected--but there will be no herd immunity, there will be no effects of scale that make the system particularly useful or affordable compared to proprietary, centralized, and more performant alternatives. People can and do still use bittorrent illegally, but it doesn't have even close to enough market share to make centralized streaming services nonexistent or non-competitive. Basically the same idea. The fact that you can't decentralize legislation and physical governance is not insignificant. You can't block the influence of preexisting powerful actors. Those factors do have the power to destroy the decentralization movement, and most likely will.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Some of us don't particularly want the "herd". The Internet was a better place before Eternal September. And it arguably would have become a far better place, without commercialization. Maybe those "powerful actors" could prevent decentralization from becoming mainstream, but they can't kill it. Consider marijuana, for example. Use has been demonized for decades by the US and its allies. But that didn't stop an appreciable fraction of the US population from using (or at least, trying). And now it's becoming legal in more and more states. For Internet decentralization, the driving factors will almost certainly be porn, gambling and prostitution. To the extent that they're driven off the clearnet, demand for them will fuel growth of alternatives. Freedom of expression is essential, of course, but it will be just a side benefit. The more decentralization is suppressed by "powerful actors", the more it will be dominated by other "powerful actors". That is, by organized crime.

simias 8y ago

Except looking at the past 20 years or so it seems clear that the trend is going the other way around. Slack itself is an example of that, not long ago it would've been a set of self-hosted tools. People have ditched IRC in favor of Discord and friends, they've ditched decentralized forums, BBSs and mailing lists for social networks, everybody hosts everything using the same four or five cloud providers, streaming and direct download is much more popular than BitTorrent etc... Maybe this trend will reverse eventually but I don't really see the signs yet. The Cryptocurrency crowd keeps shouting "decentralization" but they still fail to create applications that can compete with the centralized alternatives in terms of usability, performance and cost. There have been many attempts at making decentralized social networks but they failed to gain mainstream adoption. IPFS works pretty well but again, hardly anybody uses it. I'm all for decentralization but there's no denying that there seems to be a path of least resistance towards centralized solutions. They're easier to develop, easier to maintain, easier to upgrade and often easier to use. So for me decentralization is the objective, but unfortunately it's not "clearly the end game".

uberswe 8y ago
It will take time before decentralised services become mainstream. It's slow right now and we are still learning, we need things to be easier. The backend is basically figured out at this point and we need to focus a bit more on UX. Regarding torrents, many game clients will use torrents for their downloads, the user simply doesn't see and deal with the torrenting. Don't confuse self-hosted with decentralised, not the same :)
- simias 8y ago
  >It will take time before decentralised services become mainstream. Again, this is looking at things backwards IMO. You seem to imply that there's a slow momentum from a centralized web to a decentralized one when in fact there's been a rather fast momentum in exactly the opposite direction over the past decades. To me what you're saying sounds like "horses are about to become a very common way of moving goods". Maybe you're right but merely looking at the trend it's clearly not going that way at all. >The backend is basically figured out at this point and we need to focus a bit more on UX. You'll have to tell me more specifically what you have in mind there because that sounds very optimistic to me. We've had decentralized "backends" for as long as we've had the internet. The web is mostly decentralized by design. Even DNS is distributed across plenty of authorities for the various TLDs (even if each of them is effectively centralized and not anybody can become an authority). Email is decentralized. BitTorrent is decentralized. IRC is decentralized. We're collectively moving away from these technologies, not towards them. I'm personally still a heavy user of all three of these things but it definitely feels niche now (email obviously isn't but self-hosted email is). >Regarding torrents, many game clients will use torrents for their downloads, the user simply doesn't see and deal with the torrenting. Which is pretty much irrelevant in this conversation then. It's about the technology people use to share content with each other, not about how Blizzard chooses to update your WoW client. It's a locked-down, vendor-approved way of distributing software from a centralized authority. >Don't confuse self-hosted with decentralised, not the same :) It's not the same but it's related. In general if something is truly decentralized then it becomes self-hostable otherwise it's more distributed than decentralized. Anybody can host their Bitcoin node, their Bittorent peer or their email server. I can't host a Facebook node.

pjc50 8y ago

Decentralisation has costs, and note that booting off ""disruptive"" users (however defined - spam, abuse) is an absolute necessity of running a communications service. These costs are part of why USENET died.

notyourday 8y ago

> I don't think this is the future of the web. This is the future of a centralized web with products, services and companies that people salaries to develop products and services. The decentralized internet utopia is dead. Stick a fork in it. It is a fringe populated by the modern equivalent of the grey beards of 1990s.

open-source-ux 8y ago

"..decentralised solutions for everything" It will never happen, at least not on a scale that will affect significant web traffic. There is another model, not decentralised but a practical middle-ground: the WordPress model. Consider the following: Wordpress is an example of a profitable open source app that can easily be installed on countless shared hosting platforms or on a VPS. It's easy to switch hosting providers when you want to (and to take your data with you). It's popularity means that one-click installs are widespread. Unfortunately, there is no common standard for software installation on the server side, and this lack of an easy installation process for everyone else severely limits self-hosting websites and apps. Many developers think deploying a server-side web app is a non-issue, or they erroneously think that installing Cloudron/providing Docker instances/typing command line instructions are all "easy". Have you seen the server deployment instructions for "web friendly" languages like Ruby and Python? It's ludicrously complicated. And still developers seen nothing wrong in such install procedures. It's so frustrating. I wish there was some momentum or traction in making server-side web app installation as universally simple as a one-click Wordpress install. It would also unlock countless opportunities for developers to reach more users or customers. But maybe some developers secretly prefer the complexity? It certainly makes selling a SaaS solution much more attractive over the stupidly complicated self-hosting option.

bookbinder 8y ago

> Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. Only techies care about decentralization. Most people would rather follow a Twitter feed rather than an RSS feed. Most would prefer a mega forum like Reddit rather than multiple, standalone forums with separate accounts. There are also network effects that give centralized platforms more of a competitive advantage. I keep hearing people talk about the need for decentralized social media, but nobody knows how to make it an attractive, viable option for the masses...especially when such a solution wouldn't be as profitable (or as frictionless) as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

lixtra 8y ago

I wish you were right. But so far the winner takes all effect and commercial benefits pushed most things to big companies. Even the archetype of decentralization, email, is being pushed to big players by spam control.

vertexFarm 8y ago

Controversial opinion incoming: decentralization isn't going to be a silver bullet that fundamentally solves anything. These services are still going to depend on large amounts of expensive hardware and infrastructure that must exist in the real world, much like cryptocurrency. That hardware is still vulnerable to control and influence from strong corporate or state actors, so the decentralized stuff running on them is always going to be under influence as well. Even with strong crypto, methods to manipulate it either directly or through side channels will be developed. It's absolutely inevitable. Somebody controls the power plants generating and pricing all that electricity, somebody owns the internet backbone hardware, somebody can afford a much higher hashrate, somebody controls tech legistlation, and somebody is on the bleeding edge of cyber-warfare with a DOD budget. Sure, some of the hardware will be in private ownership, but not the majority. If it ever becomes widespread enough to be of great significance, traditional power structures will absolutely contrive a way to seize it. What this all really does in the end is create a technical caste system and obfuscation of ownership. People fortunate enough to have access and be up to speed on the latest technology (or hire people who are) will reap the rewards of decentralized systems which still belong to authoritarian actors, yet it will be extremely difficult to prove that ownership--especially to laymen. It will always have a nice hazy deniability, and it will be almost impossible to hold anyone accountable for their actions, or prevent or even identify exploitation. This is absolutely the future of the web. Perpetual and stealthy non-neutral manipulation by the technically advanced and financially powerful is here to stay. I think that as engineers our tunnel vision and intellectual hubris have given us a false sense of security as we developed this hideous system, because we thought it was some kind of purely digital realm where we have real control and real comprehension of what we are doing. But nothing is purely digital. Everything is built on top of the real, analogue world where strong actors have already divvied up and taken ownership of everything.