6 ms·

The future is all about self hosting and/or peer to peer technology not controlled by a central authority.

crankylinuxuser 6y ago
Network topological discovery is the hard pill to swallow with p2p based tech. You're paying for it in much higher network bandwidth, cpu, battery, and more. Eventually the tradeoffs will be so minuscule that they will be a rounding error. But right now, that's not true.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Pirate Bay is all magnet links now. Internet Archive serves most items as torrents while acting as a store of last resort. SciHub and LibGen are functional and available. There are tradeoffs, but it will happen, even if it's TXT records for a domain that point to IPFS links (namecoin aside). The future will make it easier, but it works today.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Pirate Bay, SciHub and Libgen are used mainly on desktop computers with an unlimited broadband connection. They are niche communities for enthusiasts (whether the dwindling pool of torrent users, or academics/bookish people). The general public now consumes its content on mobile, and as the GP mentioned there are significant bandwidth and battery costs to trying to provide distributed content over the mobile devices we have today.
- alex_young 6y ago
  The harder pill is IPv4 and NAT. It used to be easier to grab a static IP from your ISP, but those days are gone for many of us. IPv6 could really foster a home network revolution, when it's finally in place 20 years from now.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    I don't buy that NAT is a huge roadblock. A VPS is $5/mo, or dynamic DNS plus port forwarding is free. Either way, an ISP can apply the same reasoning and cut off access. Centralization due to using DNS (or raw IPs) for naming is the problem. Censorship resistance comes from there being a swarm that as a whole cannot be taken down, while members come and go. This requires a decentralized namespace for referencing content.
romwell 6y ago
Also the past or the present, if you choose to. Most people don't, and get surprised when they find out the difference.
- andai 6y ago
  Any suggestions? I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
guevara 6y ago
I don't know, I think p2p is more a meme. Sure, it has its use cases but for "muh decentralization of authority", I don't think the future will consist of p2p tech. Just look at BitChute and Steemit.
- thinkmassive 6y ago
  I would rather look at successful projects with potential, like IPFS[0] and Peertube[1], instead of failed ICO money grabs. [0] https://blog.ipfs.io/ https://blog.ipfs.io/ [1] https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/
  - veb 6y ago
    Even PixelFed, https://pixelfed.org https://pixelfed.org (Federation)
- john-state-moz 6y ago
  While I'm not familiar with BitChute, a large part of Steemit's issues boil down to their choice of consensus mechanism: delegated proof-of-stake (dPOS), rather than a fault with a p2p model generally. Many decentralized projects stay away from dPOS, as it can lead to the cartel-like structure that's currently plaguing the platform.
icedchai 6y ago
Self hosting was 20 years ago. Who do you think is better at running a mail server, you or Google? Do you want to deal with spam complaints, security, OS upgrades, DMARC, SPF, etc? It's all a pain. FYI I run my own mail servers as a hobby, but still have my main personal account on gmail.
- dooglius 6y ago
  If Google starts to censor emails containing certain content, which doesn't seem too far from reality at this point, then I would be much better at running a mail server than Google in the sense that I would get any mail that is sent to me.
- NeutronStar 6y ago
  Mail is basically the only thing that is a royal pain to self host.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Who do you think is better at running a mail server, you or Google? Neither. My hosting provider is better than either me or Google at that, and there are other companies providing email services who are better still. What Google is "better" at with GMail is providing email whose suckage is just short of the level of suckage that would make it worth its users' while to give up having to just go to one place, their Google account, for everything in order to have email services that were bearable.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    That's fine. The point was really, hosting it yourself vs someone experienced with all the nuances of email hosting. The fact is, it IS a pain.
jolmg 6y ago
Another option is encrypted hosting. How about something like eCryptfs/EncFS over NFS/SFTP? It's always about convenience though. Nothing beats being able to access your files by visiting a website.
hyperman1 6y ago
Unfortunately, I have to believe the opposite, even if I wish it wasn't true. People don't want to maintain a server, look after backups, deal with software updates, legal stuff, blacklists, ddos attacks, .... it never ends. People want to create some content, publish it and be done. This directly drives the future to externalizing these things to other companies. Distance isn't an issue, economies of scale are huge. This means smaller companies cant compete with bigger ones. The internet causes big winner-take-all effects. This drives further and further centralization, until only a few oligopolies remain. I liked the computing ecosystem of the 80s and 90s more than that of today. It was smaller, more comunal. I do have my own small server on the net, and enjoy it. But to be honest, that's a hobby. Self hosting looks like it will end up like doing your own car maintenance, building your own radio, creating your own railway engine, smithing your own sword, ... A nice hobby for a smaller and smaller minority, but obsolete for more than 99% of the population
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Self hosting It isn't just "hosting" that's the issue, it's "publishing". You can buy "hosting" for a few dollars a month from lots of companies. But that just gives you a place to park files. There's still a lot of other things you need to get to the point of "create some content, publish it and be done", which you correctly say is what people want, and "hosting" does not include all those things. Various hosting providers will also sell you "publishing" or "content management" services of various types, but none of them are as easy to use as "edit my document on Google Drive" (or even, for that matter, "edit my markdown file and git push to my public repo on github", which is the techie version of "edit my document on Google Drive"), which is why virtually nobody uses them. However, that doesn't necessarily mean we're doomed to a few oligopolies controlling everything that gets published. First, even if less than 1% of the population is able and willing to do the extra work to publish on their own site independently of the oligopolies (as you do, and as I do too), that's still not nothing. And we can still send links to our own sites via email, facebook, twitter, etc. Second, while the oligopolies currently provide self-publishing capabilities that are easier to use than anything else, that's still not their primary business model; the only reason they provide them is to corral more users into their walled gardens so they can sell more ads. Since it's not their primary business model, they are vulnerable to disruption from someone for whom providing self-publishing capabilities is their primary business model. (Of course, to say this could happen is not to say it will happen, or that it's easy.)
KCUOJJQJ 6y ago
I think the cloud was a dumb idea all along. CDNs are an exception though.
013a 6y ago
I agree. Its a weirdly divisive issue, but I think the market will continue to move this way. The issue that all centralized systems will inevitably face is the requirement to blanket apply overly restrictive policies in order to head off legal issues. You see this in every massive, centralized system. Google Drive deletes files that trip a bandwidth limit. YouTube has algorithms which ban videos for even speaking about a topic. There's a lot of nuance in moderating content; that nuance gets lost in systems of massive scale, and this inevitably causes these systems to "implode" on themselves. In other words: the legal system has a ton of nuance. Nuance defines our legal system. Its alright to kill someone in self defense; its not alright to kill someone in cold blood. But, Google (et al) cannot apply nuance at scale. No one can. Its physically impossible. The issue is not Google; its the Scale. There are two possible futures: One where we continue down the path of centralization, the draconian policies continue to get worse, and our right to speech is increasingly eroded by private companies; another where we move to more peer-to-peer moderation, which will probably be in a more peer-to-peer like system. There is no third option. People argue this point like there is a third option: There is not. Distributed networks may not happen, but you will not like the world we'll live in if they don't. This doesn't necessarily have to be a strict Peer-to-Peer system in the technical sense. Reddit is, to some degree, a Distributed, Peer-to-Peer system, whereby the moderators of subreddits get primary control over the content in those subreddits. There's a relationship large products like G-Suite could have with their customers, whereby they delegate the moderation of the majority of their users activities to the customer/IT, while still being capable of stepping in and remediating issues with problem customers as a whole. This is, actually, pretty similar to the relationship AWS has with its customers, and it works! But, G-Suite does not have this relationship with their customers; they blanket apply the same personal account policies to enterprise customers. But, I also truly believe that no one at Google even knows what their system is doing anymore. Its probably billions of lines of code, systems, policy enforcement, tripwires, and circuit breakers that have long since spiraled out of the control of anyone who actually may want to improve their relationship with enterprise customers.

Network topological discovery is the hard pill to swallow with p2p based tech. You're paying for it in much higher network bandwidth, cpu, battery, and more. Eventually the tradeoffs will be so minuscule that they will be a rounding error. But right now, that's not true.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Pirate Bay is all magnet links now. Internet Archive serves most items as torrents while acting as a store of last resort. SciHub and LibGen are functional and available. There are tradeoffs, but it will happen, even if it's TXT records for a domain that point to IPFS links (namecoin aside). The future will make it easier, but it works today.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Pirate Bay, SciHub and Libgen are used mainly on desktop computers with an unlimited broadband connection. They are niche communities for enthusiasts (whether the dwindling pool of torrent users, or academics/bookish people). The general public now consumes its content on mobile, and as the GP mentioned there are significant bandwidth and battery costs to trying to provide distributed content over the mobile devices we have today.
alex_young 6y ago
The harder pill is IPv4 and NAT. It used to be easier to grab a static IP from your ISP, but those days are gone for many of us. IPv6 could really foster a home network revolution, when it's finally in place 20 years from now.
- mindslight 6y ago
  I don't buy that NAT is a huge roadblock. A VPS is $5/mo, or dynamic DNS plus port forwarding is free. Either way, an ISP can apply the same reasoning and cut off access. Centralization due to using DNS (or raw IPs) for naming is the problem. Censorship resistance comes from there being a swarm that as a whole cannot be taken down, while members come and go. This requires a decentralized namespace for referencing content.

romwell 6y ago

Also the past or the present, if you choose to. Most people don't, and get surprised when they find out the difference.

andai 6y ago
Any suggestions? I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

guevara 6y ago

I don't know, I think p2p is more a meme. Sure, it has its use cases but for "muh decentralization of authority", I don't think the future will consist of p2p tech. Just look at BitChute and Steemit.

thinkmassive 6y ago
I would rather look at successful projects with potential, like IPFS[0] and Peertube[1], instead of failed ICO money grabs. [0] https://blog.ipfs.io/ https://blog.ipfs.io/ [1] https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/
- veb 6y ago
  Even PixelFed, https://pixelfed.org https://pixelfed.org (Federation)
john-state-moz 6y ago
While I'm not familiar with BitChute, a large part of Steemit's issues boil down to their choice of consensus mechanism: delegated proof-of-stake (dPOS), rather than a fault with a p2p model generally. Many decentralized projects stay away from dPOS, as it can lead to the cartel-like structure that's currently plaguing the platform.

icedchai 6y ago

Self hosting was 20 years ago. Who do you think is better at running a mail server, you or Google? Do you want to deal with spam complaints, security, OS upgrades, DMARC, SPF, etc? It's all a pain. FYI I run my own mail servers as a hobby, but still have my main personal account on gmail.

dooglius 6y ago
If Google starts to censor emails containing certain content, which doesn't seem too far from reality at this point, then I would be much better at running a mail server than Google in the sense that I would get any mail that is sent to me.
NeutronStar 6y ago
Mail is basically the only thing that is a royal pain to self host.
pdonis 6y ago
> Who do you think is better at running a mail server, you or Google? Neither. My hosting provider is better than either me or Google at that, and there are other companies providing email services who are better still. What Google is "better" at with GMail is providing email whose suckage is just short of the level of suckage that would make it worth its users' while to give up having to just go to one place, their Google account, for everything in order to have email services that were bearable.
- icedchai 6y ago
  That's fine. The point was really, hosting it yourself vs someone experienced with all the nuances of email hosting. The fact is, it IS a pain.

jolmg 6y ago

Another option is encrypted hosting. How about something like eCryptfs/EncFS over NFS/SFTP? It's always about convenience though. Nothing beats being able to access your files by visiting a website.

hyperman1 6y ago

Unfortunately, I have to believe the opposite, even if I wish it wasn't true. People don't want to maintain a server, look after backups, deal with software updates, legal stuff, blacklists, ddos attacks, .... it never ends. People want to create some content, publish it and be done. This directly drives the future to externalizing these things to other companies. Distance isn't an issue, economies of scale are huge. This means smaller companies cant compete with bigger ones. The internet causes big winner-take-all effects. This drives further and further centralization, until only a few oligopolies remain. I liked the computing ecosystem of the 80s and 90s more than that of today. It was smaller, more comunal. I do have my own small server on the net, and enjoy it. But to be honest, that's a hobby. Self hosting looks like it will end up like doing your own car maintenance, building your own radio, creating your own railway engine, smithing your own sword, ... A nice hobby for a smaller and smaller minority, but obsolete for more than 99% of the population

pdonis 6y ago
> Self hosting It isn't just "hosting" that's the issue, it's "publishing". You can buy "hosting" for a few dollars a month from lots of companies. But that just gives you a place to park files. There's still a lot of other things you need to get to the point of "create some content, publish it and be done", which you correctly say is what people want, and "hosting" does not include all those things. Various hosting providers will also sell you "publishing" or "content management" services of various types, but none of them are as easy to use as "edit my document on Google Drive" (or even, for that matter, "edit my markdown file and git push to my public repo on github", which is the techie version of "edit my document on Google Drive"), which is why virtually nobody uses them. However, that doesn't necessarily mean we're doomed to a few oligopolies controlling everything that gets published. First, even if less than 1% of the population is able and willing to do the extra work to publish on their own site independently of the oligopolies (as you do, and as I do too), that's still not nothing. And we can still send links to our own sites via email, facebook, twitter, etc. Second, while the oligopolies currently provide self-publishing capabilities that are easier to use than anything else, that's still not their primary business model; the only reason they provide them is to corral more users into their walled gardens so they can sell more ads. Since it's not their primary business model, they are vulnerable to disruption from someone for whom providing self-publishing capabilities is their primary business model. (Of course, to say this could happen is not to say it will happen, or that it's easy.)

KCUOJJQJ 6y ago

I think the cloud was a dumb idea all along. CDNs are an exception though.

013a 6y ago

I agree. Its a weirdly divisive issue, but I think the market will continue to move this way. The issue that all centralized systems will inevitably face is the requirement to blanket apply overly restrictive policies in order to head off legal issues. You see this in every massive, centralized system. Google Drive deletes files that trip a bandwidth limit. YouTube has algorithms which ban videos for even speaking about a topic. There's a lot of nuance in moderating content; that nuance gets lost in systems of massive scale, and this inevitably causes these systems to "implode" on themselves. In other words: the legal system has a ton of nuance. Nuance defines our legal system. Its alright to kill someone in self defense; its not alright to kill someone in cold blood. But, Google (et al) cannot apply nuance at scale. No one can. Its physically impossible. The issue is not Google; its the Scale. There are two possible futures: One where we continue down the path of centralization, the draconian policies continue to get worse, and our right to speech is increasingly eroded by private companies; another where we move to more peer-to-peer moderation, which will probably be in a more peer-to-peer like system. There is no third option. People argue this point like there is a third option: There is not. Distributed networks may not happen, but you will not like the world we'll live in if they don't. This doesn't necessarily have to be a strict Peer-to-Peer system in the technical sense. Reddit is, to some degree, a Distributed, Peer-to-Peer system, whereby the moderators of subreddits get primary control over the content in those subreddits. There's a relationship large products like G-Suite could have with their customers, whereby they delegate the moderation of the majority of their users activities to the customer/IT, while still being capable of stepping in and remediating issues with problem customers as a whole. This is, actually, pretty similar to the relationship AWS has with its customers, and it works! But, G-Suite does not have this relationship with their customers; they blanket apply the same personal account policies to enterprise customers. But, I also truly believe that no one at Google even knows what their system is doing anymore. Its probably billions of lines of code, systems, policy enforcement, tripwires, and circuit breakers that have long since spiraled out of the control of anyone who actually may want to improve their relationship with enterprise customers.