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What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. S

What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. People will migrate, and then, slowly but surely, the trap will start springing. The service will be locked down, federation will be disabled, most data export functions too, same for the API etc. The quality will slowly degrade, but this willbe the point of no return. I see that happening with Gmail already.Mail was great, but we need more. Decentrealized protocols should be based on constitutions of democratic countries, as they've learned their lesson already. It's not enough to make a country democratic now, we need to secure it against future hostile attemts at takeover. Same needs to be done for decentralized/federated protocols.

asdkhadsj 7y ago
> What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. This is not a problem I'm trying to solve, as I have not heard/thought-of a solution I like. I also feel it is a minimal problem. Facebook is a problem in my view. Gmail, not so much. Why? Because I don't use Gmail, and I have minimal to zero issues caused by the fact that I don't use gmail. Federation seems to work well here. > In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. People will migrate, and then, slowly but surely, the trap will start springing. I'm not sure I've seen that with something like email. Though, to be honest I'm not sure I've seen anything like email, either. It sort of happens with email in the sense that without a large email provider spam is difficult to beat. Furthermore large providers are distrusting of non-providers (ie, running your own email server), but this to me seems less of a problem with federation, and instead a problem with email itself - one I'm not sure how to solve. Spam is a difficult beast. > I see that happening with Gmail already.Mail was great, but we need more. Decentrealized protocols should be based on constitutions of democratic countries, as they've learned their lesson already. It's not enough to make a country democratic now, we need to secure it against future hostile attemts at takeover. Same needs to be done for decentralized/federated protocols. I don't understand what you mean tbh - but if your democratic countries create standards like email, federated and distributed, then I don't have any complaints. Though, to me (as a hypothetical dev) it makes little difference that you added politics on top of it - I just care that it's federated and I can own my data/etc.
FerretFred 7y ago
> Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Yes, you do, and also an ISP that will allow you to do so. I'm lucky in that my ISP allows me to run almost anything. However as regards a server, you don't necessarily need a big, expensive machine. I run a low-traffic web server on a Raspberry Pi 3 and it recently had a mass visit from HN readers when I did a "Show HN" - no problems. With the Pi 4 there are lots of possibilities with the extra power etc. Why not start small and see how long it takes to outgrow your machine - it may take longer than you think.

asdkhadsj 7y ago

> What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. This is not a problem I'm trying to solve, as I have not heard/thought-of a solution I like. I also feel it is a minimal problem. Facebook is a problem in my view. Gmail, not so much. Why? Because I don't use Gmail, and I have minimal to zero issues caused by the fact that I don't use gmail. Federation seems to work well here. > In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. People will migrate, and then, slowly but surely, the trap will start springing. I'm not sure I've seen that with something like email. Though, to be honest I'm not sure I've seen anything like email, either. It sort of happens with email in the sense that without a large email provider spam is difficult to beat. Furthermore large providers are distrusting of non-providers (ie, running your own email server), but this to me seems less of a problem with federation, and instead a problem with email itself - one I'm not sure how to solve. Spam is a difficult beast. > I see that happening with Gmail already.Mail was great, but we need more. Decentrealized protocols should be based on constitutions of democratic countries, as they've learned their lesson already. It's not enough to make a country democratic now, we need to secure it against future hostile attemts at takeover. Same needs to be done for decentralized/federated protocols. I don't understand what you mean tbh - but if your democratic countries create standards like email, federated and distributed, then I don't have any complaints. Though, to me (as a hypothetical dev) it makes little difference that you added politics on top of it - I just care that it's federated and I can own my data/etc.

FerretFred 7y ago

> Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Yes, you do, and also an ISP that will allow you to do so. I'm lucky in that my ISP allows me to run almost anything. However as regards a server, you don't necessarily need a big, expensive machine. I run a low-traffic web server on a Raspberry Pi 3 and it recently had a mass visit from HN readers when I did a "Show HN" - no problems. With the Pi 4 there are lots of possibilities with the extra power etc. Why not start small and see how long it takes to outgrow your machine - it may take longer than you think.