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You’re absolutely right. This is where someone usually says we need a decentralized web. But I wonder if we’re wasting time waiting for some new technology to

You’re absolutely right. This is where someone usually says we need a decentralized web. But I wonder if we’re wasting time waiting for some new technology to save us. I’ve been waiting at least a decade and have seen project after project fail. Maybe instead we should focus on building a network of alternative, pro-liberty sites and apps using existing technology.

apatters 8y ago
It's really just another manifestation of the tendency techies have to get overexcited about novel tech. Which is hardly the worst vice in the world, but when you want to build something that will reliably make an impact at scale, you don't really want to use novel tech outside of very rare cases. You want to use stuff that is dependable and gets the job done. I'm still a little skeptical of claims that existing web tech isn't decentralized enough. You can still start a website anywhere on the planet in 5 minutes. The big distribution/promotion channels were always centralized long since before the web existed. A lot of these arguments seem to really boil down to "if the government passes a law I don't like, I can't evade it." Governments have been passing some bad laws lately, but they've done that for basically all of human history... I'm not at all against technology which resists bad or unjust laws, but we are never going to get to tech that is 100% effective at evading the law and probably shouldn't since the outcome would be anarchy. My money is on the web becoming choked with monopoly-entrenching, innovation-crushing regulations, and then people flocking to something surprisingly mundane, imperfect, and not heavily based on novel technology -- simply because that thing is less regulated.
- ldubost 8y ago
  > I'm still a little skeptical of claims that existing web tech isn't decentralized enough. This is because it's not a technological problem. The path to an actual decentralized web is clean technologically. We just need to take what already exists which is currently massively used in a centralized way, and build the services UI on top of it. Of course there are still crypto to add and so on, but if the investment where going that way it would come fast. The real problem is a business problem. Decentralized services don't pay unless there is something centralized. We cannot expect that (big) private companies will pay for something that's not in their interest. I've been running an open source company for 15 years. I've see so many times in the voice or in the eyes of entrepreneurs that they saw us as philanthropists. If we want de centralization, competition and control of our data and software we either or a combination of: - need individuals or comapnies to pay for it (pay your software provider + hosted fairly) - public funding - laws restriction the oligopoly approach - gdpr++++ - forcing standard based for big companies - forbidding centralization - forcing open-source Some are voluntary extreme and have little chance to ever happen.
everdrive 8y ago
Thanks for injecting this sanity. People often to look to technology to solve something. At best, it can solve things temporarily. At worst, it introduces new ways for people to be cruel. (Twitter, facebook, etc) What all of us can do is modify our behavior. This can mean building websites with currently-existing technology, or just turning off the computer more often.

apatters 8y ago

It's really just another manifestation of the tendency techies have to get overexcited about novel tech. Which is hardly the worst vice in the world, but when you want to build something that will reliably make an impact at scale, you don't really want to use novel tech outside of very rare cases. You want to use stuff that is dependable and gets the job done. I'm still a little skeptical of claims that existing web tech isn't decentralized enough. You can still start a website anywhere on the planet in 5 minutes. The big distribution/promotion channels were always centralized long since before the web existed. A lot of these arguments seem to really boil down to "if the government passes a law I don't like, I can't evade it." Governments have been passing some bad laws lately, but they've done that for basically all of human history... I'm not at all against technology which resists bad or unjust laws, but we are never going to get to tech that is 100% effective at evading the law and probably shouldn't since the outcome would be anarchy. My money is on the web becoming choked with monopoly-entrenching, innovation-crushing regulations, and then people flocking to something surprisingly mundane, imperfect, and not heavily based on novel technology -- simply because that thing is less regulated.

ldubost 8y ago
> I'm still a little skeptical of claims that existing web tech isn't decentralized enough. This is because it's not a technological problem. The path to an actual decentralized web is clean technologically. We just need to take what already exists which is currently massively used in a centralized way, and build the services UI on top of it. Of course there are still crypto to add and so on, but if the investment where going that way it would come fast. The real problem is a business problem. Decentralized services don't pay unless there is something centralized. We cannot expect that (big) private companies will pay for something that's not in their interest. I've been running an open source company for 15 years. I've see so many times in the voice or in the eyes of entrepreneurs that they saw us as philanthropists. If we want de centralization, competition and control of our data and software we either or a combination of: - need individuals or comapnies to pay for it (pay your software provider + hosted fairly) - public funding - laws restriction the oligopoly approach - gdpr++++ - forcing standard based for big companies - forbidding centralization - forcing open-source Some are voluntary extreme and have little chance to ever happen.

everdrive 8y ago

Thanks for injecting this sanity. People often to look to technology to solve something. At best, it can solve things temporarily. At worst, it introduces new ways for people to be cruel. (Twitter, facebook, etc) What all of us can do is modify our behavior. This can mean building websites with currently-existing technology, or just turning off the computer more often.