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> A digital product which, if it achieves the necessary adoption, would force anyone wishing to engage in modern society into a feudal system via network effect

> A digital product which, if it achieves the necessary adoption, would force anyone wishing to engage in modern society into a feudal system via network effects. Most other digital products (outside of some decentralized services and even then maybe not. See, for example email) have this problem but even worse in that you end up in a dictatorship. Is a feudal system with free exit worse than a dictatorship? I’d say no so does anyone make this argument against all non-decentralized services? I don’t think so.

strbean 6y ago
> you end up in a dictatorship I guess in the case of publicly traded companies, it's a kind of plutocracy? Control ultimately lies with the shareholders. This is a fair point though, but I think the rationale for this criticism already accepts that our current infrastructure is less than ideal. > so does anyone make this argument against all non-decentralized services? I don’t think so. I think the people interested in decentralized services do make that argument, which is why they are so critical of the hierarchy of Urbit. TBH I can see it from both sides. Dealing with bad actors and community management without any kind of hierarchy is very much an unsolved problem, probably unsolvable.
- creddit 6y ago
  > I guess in the case of publicly traded companies, it's a kind of plutocracy? Control ultimately lies with the shareholders. With the voting shareholders of whom are in many cases dominated by super-voting shareholders of which the control often lies specifically in the hands of a founder type. Could go in many directions but plutocracy would be very common in this conception. Interestingly, with the rise of index investing this could even be thought of as arising to a democracy in some sense. > Dealing with bad actors and community management without any kind of hierarchy is very much an unsolved problem, probably unsolvable. Yes, highly agreed. There is likely a broad truth regarding the justness of organizational systems and I'm very interested in exploring possible proofs of such impossibility but have yet to have the time. There are interesting tangential concepts such as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...) in the realm of Social Choice theory.

strbean 6y ago

> you end up in a dictatorship I guess in the case of publicly traded companies, it's a kind of plutocracy? Control ultimately lies with the shareholders. This is a fair point though, but I think the rationale for this criticism already accepts that our current infrastructure is less than ideal. > so does anyone make this argument against all non-decentralized services? I don’t think so. I think the people interested in decentralized services do make that argument, which is why they are so critical of the hierarchy of Urbit. TBH I can see it from both sides. Dealing with bad actors and community management without any kind of hierarchy is very much an unsolved problem, probably unsolvable.

creddit 6y ago
> I guess in the case of publicly traded companies, it's a kind of plutocracy? Control ultimately lies with the shareholders. With the voting shareholders of whom are in many cases dominated by super-voting shareholders of which the control often lies specifically in the hands of a founder type. Could go in many directions but plutocracy would be very common in this conception. Interestingly, with the rise of index investing this could even be thought of as arising to a democracy in some sense. > Dealing with bad actors and community management without any kind of hierarchy is very much an unsolved problem, probably unsolvable. Yes, highly agreed. There is likely a broad truth regarding the justness of organizational systems and I'm very interested in exploring possible proofs of such impossibility but have yet to have the time. There are interesting tangential concepts such as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...) in the realm of Social Choice theory.