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The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up c

The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did. Nobody cares about the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible. There was a great series of posts about decentralization from BitTorrent people recently: https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/why-bittorrent-mattered-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-1-of-4-fa3c6fcef488 https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/why-bittorrent-mattered-bit... https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/if-youre-not-breaking-rules-you-re-doing-it-wrong-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-2-of-4-72c68227fe69 https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/if-youre-not-breaking-rules... https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/intent-complexity-and-the-governance-paradox-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-3-of-4-1d14ac390f3f https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/intent-complexity-and-the-g... https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/decentralized-disruption-who-dares-wins-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-4-of-4-f022e8641c1a https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/decentralized-disruption-wh...

fenwick67 8y ago
> ...organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did Huh? Where is this coming from? Can the IPFS or DAT community leaders reign anything in? There are bootstrap nodes but I'm pretty sure these are just practical stopgaps for now, not a means of control.
colordrops 8y ago
Bitcoin?
- Etheryte 8y ago
  While in theory Bitcoin is decentralized, in practice roughly half of the coins in existence are from a single mining company and 74% of global mining power currently resides in China, belonging to a handful of owners. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-links-74-bitcoin-mining-china-sees-threat-network/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-links-74-bitcoin...
  - colordrops 8y ago
    Yet no one can prevent you from using Bitcoin or take away your coins. Seems the protocol design has been highly successful at keeping the functionality itself decentralized.
- kbody 8y ago
  Per sgeisler's comment[1] there's the ability of any individual inside Russia that uses Blockstream's Satellite (free) to essential link Runet with the rest-of-the-world Bitcoin network and maintain global consencus even if there isn't direct internet link between the "two internets". I hope someone takes advantage of that and keep logs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19176785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19176785
mattlondon 8y ago
> the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible Citation needed. As far as I am aware, the main aim for dweb stuff is decentralisation, i.e. removing single points of failure, providing a more democratised means for people to store and distribute materials, and lofty-but-perhaps-unrealistic-ideas (if this article is accurate) about community networks separate from the "main internet". Nowhere on DATs or IPFSs sites for example have I seen anything at all about evading the law? Please can you share your sources for this as it is news to me.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  If rules are enforceable on users of the system, you have too much authority in it, it cannot realistically be called a decentralized system. It's irrelevant if it happens to be a peer-to-peer system without a single point of failure on some level.
  - lgierth 8y ago
    What are you talking about?
Confiks 8y ago
> The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control All the examples of decentralized software mentioned in the article are fully open source. They don't need to "give up control", because they are not necessarily in control. It is of course true that they run the most used implementation of the software, and that the project is centralized around that. That's mostly a result of these projects being run as meritocracies; any person or group who wishes could aid in removing that initial organizational centralization. The original authors also simply know the most about running their own software in production.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Those people have to put a lot of work to make sure decentralization actually happens, to incentivize others to make and promote other implementations, etc. But they don't even want to talk about it. They want everyone to use the thing they control. There is no decentralization here at all.
  - Confiks 8y ago
    > But they don't even want to talk about it. I think that's a broad generalization, perhaps of your own experiences. There are enough people on the cutting edge that you can constructively talk with. But remember it's still a meritocracy: 'they' might listen to you, but will only take you seriously if you present your own work to them.
iagovar 8y ago
That was an interesting read, thank you.

fenwick67 8y ago

> ...organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did Huh? Where is this coming from? Can the IPFS or DAT community leaders reign anything in? There are bootstrap nodes but I'm pretty sure these are just practical stopgaps for now, not a means of control.

colordrops 8y ago

Bitcoin?

Etheryte 8y ago
While in theory Bitcoin is decentralized, in practice roughly half of the coins in existence are from a single mining company and 74% of global mining power currently resides in China, belonging to a handful of owners. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-links-74-bitcoin-mining-china-sees-threat-network/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-links-74-bitcoin...
- colordrops 8y ago
  Yet no one can prevent you from using Bitcoin or take away your coins. Seems the protocol design has been highly successful at keeping the functionality itself decentralized.
kbody 8y ago
Per sgeisler's comment[1] there's the ability of any individual inside Russia that uses Blockstream's Satellite (free) to essential link Runet with the rest-of-the-world Bitcoin network and maintain global consencus even if there isn't direct internet link between the "two internets". I hope someone takes advantage of that and keep logs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19176785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19176785

mattlondon 8y ago

> the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible Citation needed. As far as I am aware, the main aim for dweb stuff is decentralisation, i.e. removing single points of failure, providing a more democratised means for people to store and distribute materials, and lofty-but-perhaps-unrealistic-ideas (if this article is accurate) about community networks separate from the "main internet". Nowhere on DATs or IPFSs sites for example have I seen anything at all about evading the law? Please can you share your sources for this as it is news to me.

zzzcpan 8y ago
If rules are enforceable on users of the system, you have too much authority in it, it cannot realistically be called a decentralized system. It's irrelevant if it happens to be a peer-to-peer system without a single point of failure on some level.
- lgierth 8y ago
  What are you talking about?

Confiks 8y ago

> The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control All the examples of decentralized software mentioned in the article are fully open source. They don't need to "give up control", because they are not necessarily in control. It is of course true that they run the most used implementation of the software, and that the project is centralized around that. That's mostly a result of these projects being run as meritocracies; any person or group who wishes could aid in removing that initial organizational centralization. The original authors also simply know the most about running their own software in production.

zzzcpan 8y ago
Those people have to put a lot of work to make sure decentralization actually happens, to incentivize others to make and promote other implementations, etc. But they don't even want to talk about it. They want everyone to use the thing they control. There is no decentralization here at all.
- Confiks 8y ago
  > But they don't even want to talk about it. I think that's a broad generalization, perhaps of your own experiences. There are enough people on the cutting edge that you can constructively talk with. But remember it's still a meritocracy: 'they' might listen to you, but will only take you seriously if you present your own work to them.

iagovar 8y ago

That was an interesting read, thank you.