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Decentralisation will never happen on a scale that will affect significant web traffic. However, there is another model for web apps, not purely decentralised,

Decentralisation will never happen on a scale that will affect significant web traffic. However, there is another model for web apps, not purely decentralised, but a practical option where traffic is not funnelled through a small number of big players. Let's call it 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 (rather than be locked into one provider). You can take your data with you when you switch. The popularity of WordPress means that one-click installs are widespread. Many providers also offer a 'managed' service where they take care of back-up and updates. But crucially you're still not tied to a single provider. Now imagine if all web apps were as easy to install on the server via a one-click installation like WordPress. Unfortunately, there is no common standard or API for software installation on the server side, and this lack of an easy installation process for everyone 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? They're ludicrously complicated. Developers are completely blind to the complexity and see nothing wrong in such installation procedures. The result is ever-growing centralised software through the SaaS model which beats the self-hosting alternative in simplicity every single time. Imagine if your local desktop apps were completely controlled, tracked and even terminated remotely by one provider - don't like the though of that? Yet, that is exactly what the centralised Saas model enables and nobody blinks an eye. I wish there was some momentum or traction in making server-side web app installation as universally simple as a one-click WordPress install for all for all web apps. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers to reach more users or customers. I'm not one for conspiracies, but I wonder sometimes if developers actually prefer the complexity of server-side installation because it makes selling a SaaS solution much more attractive over the ludicrously complicated self-hosting option.

alexkiritz 7y ago
Web 2.0 has been in use by a majority of people for maybe ten years now and the internet shows no signs of going away. To say that decentralization will never happen is nuts.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
I find the steps I have to go through to install stuff that I expect thousands of other people must be installing at the same time on a cloud service ridiculously complicated. The same with most tasks. I do however find them doable and maybe also a kind of job security for that reason. But I don't prefer them. I want to build stuff, not do a bunch of prep work every time I want to build stuff.
- netsensei 7y ago
  Decentralisation isn't a collection of technology. Rather, it's a set of principles or tenets. It's above all the by-product of the choices one makes. Sure, you can install a gazillion packages, use serverless, static site generators, SaaS platforms, install CMS x, y or z. But then again, you can still use a simple FTP program, copy HTML files over TCP/IP to a remote server with a process running in the background that listens for incoming HTTP requests. Your browser will still be able to from the HTML it receives via a HTTP response. In fact, you don't need a browser. Curl or Telnet will yield a string of text characters any human can read. Those basic protocols still exist after 30 years and underpin the Web. Nothing changed fundamentally, when you dig deep. As such, you could lease a shared hosting somewhere and put up your own set of HTML pages and slap a DNS domain to the IP of the server. Boom. Congratulations. You own a website now. Decentralisation - at it's core - is about ownership. If you put content and data on a host, who owns that? You or the owner of the host? This is where the entire discussion becomes a legal debate. The big shift of the past decade is that social media offer easy access to centralised hosts they own. This has caused a massive influx of users to publish stuff on hosts that are owned by others. Meanwhile, there's this perception that you need a gazillion tools to build a website. That you need deep knowledge of languages and such to publish HTML formatted content on a host you own. This couldn't be further from the truth. Unless you are a business, or an organisation and you need to manage tons HTML formatted content, you can do away with a text editor, basic HTML and shared hosting you pay a tuppence for. The only reason why things got complex because of business reasons.
  - jasode 7y ago
    >Decentralisation - at it's core - is about ownership. If you put content and data on a host, who owns that? You or the owner of the host? This is where the entire discussion becomes a legal debate. Your analysis that "ownership of data" being the core tenet of decentralization is incorrect. Consider the 3 major examples of centralization complaints: - Youtube is too centralized. A decentralized alternative is PeerTube. Is this about ownership? No because Youtube's TOS specifically says the uploader to Youtube retains ownership of the content.[1] - Twitter is too centralized. A decentralized alternative is Mastodon. But it's not about ownership of data. The Twitter TOS says the user retains copyright ownership of the tweets.[2] - Facebook is too centralized. But again, the various decentralized alternatives do not change the terms of content ownership. Facebook TOS says the user keeps ownership.[3] What the 3 examples show is that data ownership isn't the issue. The real issues of centralized services are power and audience reach. If a musician writes an original song and films an music video, and then uploads it to Youtube, the musician retains the data ownership and the intellectual copyrights. Because intellectual property ownership wasn't transferred, Youtube can be seen as a glorified content-delivery-network cache. (And there's the rub... that so-called "cdn" of Youtube has attracted a billion eyeballs.) That means there are different issues that motivates decentralisation; e.g. the power to filter/rank/recommend/censor/demonetize videos. The concentration of massive audience reach in Youtube's centralized service that makes the musician's decision to host his music video on his own home server irrelevant. I think those 3 examples should trigger a rethink of your mental framework that led you to conclude data ownership is the main issue. [1] excerpt from https://www.youtube.com/t/terms https://www.youtube.com/t/terms : 6.C - For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, [...] [2] excerpt from https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos : You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content). By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, [...] [3] excerpt from https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms : "You own the intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Facebook and the other Facebook Company Products you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want. However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a ‘license’) to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above. Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, [...]

alexkiritz 7y ago

Web 2.0 has been in use by a majority of people for maybe ten years now and the internet shows no signs of going away. To say that decentralization will never happen is nuts.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

I find the steps I have to go through to install stuff that I expect thousands of other people must be installing at the same time on a cloud service ridiculously complicated. The same with most tasks. I do however find them doable and maybe also a kind of job security for that reason. But I don't prefer them. I want to build stuff, not do a bunch of prep work every time I want to build stuff.

netsensei 7y ago
Decentralisation isn't a collection of technology. Rather, it's a set of principles or tenets. It's above all the by-product of the choices one makes. Sure, you can install a gazillion packages, use serverless, static site generators, SaaS platforms, install CMS x, y or z. But then again, you can still use a simple FTP program, copy HTML files over TCP/IP to a remote server with a process running in the background that listens for incoming HTTP requests. Your browser will still be able to from the HTML it receives via a HTTP response. In fact, you don't need a browser. Curl or Telnet will yield a string of text characters any human can read. Those basic protocols still exist after 30 years and underpin the Web. Nothing changed fundamentally, when you dig deep. As such, you could lease a shared hosting somewhere and put up your own set of HTML pages and slap a DNS domain to the IP of the server. Boom. Congratulations. You own a website now. Decentralisation - at it's core - is about ownership. If you put content and data on a host, who owns that? You or the owner of the host? This is where the entire discussion becomes a legal debate. The big shift of the past decade is that social media offer easy access to centralised hosts they own. This has caused a massive influx of users to publish stuff on hosts that are owned by others. Meanwhile, there's this perception that you need a gazillion tools to build a website. That you need deep knowledge of languages and such to publish HTML formatted content on a host you own. This couldn't be further from the truth. Unless you are a business, or an organisation and you need to manage tons HTML formatted content, you can do away with a text editor, basic HTML and shared hosting you pay a tuppence for. The only reason why things got complex because of business reasons.
- jasode 7y ago
  >Decentralisation - at it's core - is about ownership. If you put content and data on a host, who owns that? You or the owner of the host? This is where the entire discussion becomes a legal debate. Your analysis that "ownership of data" being the core tenet of decentralization is incorrect. Consider the 3 major examples of centralization complaints: - Youtube is too centralized. A decentralized alternative is PeerTube. Is this about ownership? No because Youtube's TOS specifically says the uploader to Youtube retains ownership of the content.[1] - Twitter is too centralized. A decentralized alternative is Mastodon. But it's not about ownership of data. The Twitter TOS says the user retains copyright ownership of the tweets.[2] - Facebook is too centralized. But again, the various decentralized alternatives do not change the terms of content ownership. Facebook TOS says the user keeps ownership.[3] What the 3 examples show is that data ownership isn't the issue. The real issues of centralized services are power and audience reach. If a musician writes an original song and films an music video, and then uploads it to Youtube, the musician retains the data ownership and the intellectual copyrights. Because intellectual property ownership wasn't transferred, Youtube can be seen as a glorified content-delivery-network cache. (And there's the rub... that so-called "cdn" of Youtube has attracted a billion eyeballs.) That means there are different issues that motivates decentralisation; e.g. the power to filter/rank/recommend/censor/demonetize videos. The concentration of massive audience reach in Youtube's centralized service that makes the musician's decision to host his music video on his own home server irrelevant. I think those 3 examples should trigger a rethink of your mental framework that led you to conclude data ownership is the main issue. [1] excerpt from https://www.youtube.com/t/terms https://www.youtube.com/t/terms : 6.C - For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, [...] [2] excerpt from https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos : You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content). By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, [...] [3] excerpt from https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms : "You own the intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Facebook and the other Facebook Company Products you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want. However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a ‘license’) to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above. Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, [...]