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Unfortunately the "decentralization is a spectrum" crowd has already furnished the fintech narrative with the arguments necessary to justify calling this "decen

Unfortunately the "decentralization is a spectrum" crowd has already furnished the fintech narrative with the arguments necessary to justify calling this "decentralized." The "decentralization" quality should not be used to describe any system that doesn't exhibit a permanent, irreversible systemic trend towards greater decentralization of all the levers, concentrations and bottlenecks of power within itself over time. For this to happen, the natural tendency toward concentration of leverage would need to introduce a proportional net cost increase to the system, rather than (as it normally would) be the mechanism by which economies of scale accrue to it.

gaogao 7y ago
Could you give an example of something with this decentralization quality as you described?
- Spearchucker 7y ago
  Mastodon. You can set your own server up and benefit from all othe other existing servers. Mastodon provides a decentralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. You can run your server as you see fit, because access to the wider network is federated. Zuckbucks provide a centralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. Try add your own server to help run Zuck's blockchain...
- ChainOfFools 7y ago
  Other than universal entropy, probably nothing. Though math is also decentralized, maybe even moreso, being independent of time. So maybe "nothing that is relevant on a human timescale" is closer. I strongly suspect that what we have developed a habit of calling decentralization, as if this referred to a final state of a proposed coordination solution, is in fact just a temporary, transitional phase between centralized regimes.
- Zyst 7y ago
  Git comes to mind as well, I can go to Bitbucket or Gitlab and upload my repository with its full history in seconds. Or my own self-hosted repository if I wanted. I don't agree with grandparent for what it's worth, just thought this might work as a reply to your question.
grey-area 7y ago
Bitcoin doesn’t fulfil these criteria either - the devs and miners have not become more decentralised over time, if anything more centralised. Of course it is far more decentralised than this ersatz cryptocurrency from Facebook in both spirit and actions. However the number of people who want a decentralised currency (with the many, many compromises it requires) is globally very close to 0%, so despite wailing on HN about the true meaning of cryptocurrency, this is not a reason to oppose this Facebook coin. There are much more pressing ones to oppose it IMO - handing control of your transactions and/or finances to an org as amoral and duplicitous as Facebook, or indeed to any global corporation or cabal thereof, is a very scary idea. I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails.
- um_ya 7y ago
  > I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails. By extension, I hope the effort to impose a global governmental currency fails.

gaogao 7y ago

Could you give an example of something with this decentralization quality as you described?

Spearchucker 7y ago
Mastodon. You can set your own server up and benefit from all othe other existing servers. Mastodon provides a decentralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. You can run your server as you see fit, because access to the wider network is federated. Zuckbucks provide a centralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. Try add your own server to help run Zuck's blockchain...
ChainOfFools 7y ago
Other than universal entropy, probably nothing. Though math is also decentralized, maybe even moreso, being independent of time. So maybe "nothing that is relevant on a human timescale" is closer. I strongly suspect that what we have developed a habit of calling decentralization, as if this referred to a final state of a proposed coordination solution, is in fact just a temporary, transitional phase between centralized regimes.
Zyst 7y ago
Git comes to mind as well, I can go to Bitbucket or Gitlab and upload my repository with its full history in seconds. Or my own self-hosted repository if I wanted. I don't agree with grandparent for what it's worth, just thought this might work as a reply to your question.

grey-area 7y ago

Bitcoin doesn’t fulfil these criteria either - the devs and miners have not become more decentralised over time, if anything more centralised. Of course it is far more decentralised than this ersatz cryptocurrency from Facebook in both spirit and actions. However the number of people who want a decentralised currency (with the many, many compromises it requires) is globally very close to 0%, so despite wailing on HN about the true meaning of cryptocurrency, this is not a reason to oppose this Facebook coin. There are much more pressing ones to oppose it IMO - handing control of your transactions and/or finances to an org as amoral and duplicitous as Facebook, or indeed to any global corporation or cabal thereof, is a very scary idea. I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails.

um_ya 7y ago
> I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails. By extension, I hope the effort to impose a global governmental currency fails.