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> Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. Which will lead to a lot of users being hosted on a single instance which provides convenient acc

> Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. Which will lead to a lot of users being hosted on a single instance which provides convenient access, which completes the loop to centralized. See gmail. > And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away. I don't think that is necessarily a problem for most users. > It'll be this cycle of a new platform being fresh and trendy, then they become bigger, care about being taken seriously by traditional media, for getting ad deals with the big players, then a new platform pops up, cycle repeats. This is, though. See Reddit :(

robjan 6y ago
How many people (outside of the HN circle) actually use Gmail for personal email now? It's mostly been killed by Facebook, WhatsApp or their alternatives.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  And most of these alternatives still need an E-Mail to sign up, which loops back to gmail. Statista puts the number of its users at 1.5 billion in 2018[0]. There are some alternatives, yes, but if you ever tried to run your own mailserver you'll quickly find out that gmail users not receiving your mail is very much a problem. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/432390/active-gmail-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/432390/active-gmail-user...
  - mauvehaus 6y ago
    Fastmail? Protonmail? Others? It's not as though the only options are gmail and running your own mail server. They aren't free, but neither is your time to run a mail server and gmail is only gratis, not libre.
    - Sebb767 6y ago
      I've never said its the only option. I use a rather unknown hoster myself. But the majority of the users are with very few companies; for the US and EU gmail probably dominates the private user market. Or, let's say it this way: If someone selfhosting his mail server doesn't receive your mail, it's his problem. If gmail users don't receive your mail, it's your problem. And that's not a sign of decentralisation.

robjan 6y ago

How many people (outside of the HN circle) actually use Gmail for personal email now? It's mostly been killed by Facebook, WhatsApp or their alternatives.

Sebb767 6y ago
And most of these alternatives still need an E-Mail to sign up, which loops back to gmail. Statista puts the number of its users at 1.5 billion in 2018[0]. There are some alternatives, yes, but if you ever tried to run your own mailserver you'll quickly find out that gmail users not receiving your mail is very much a problem. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/432390/active-gmail-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/432390/active-gmail-user...
- mauvehaus 6y ago
  Fastmail? Protonmail? Others? It's not as though the only options are gmail and running your own mail server. They aren't free, but neither is your time to run a mail server and gmail is only gratis, not libre.
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    I've never said its the only option. I use a rather unknown hoster myself. But the majority of the users are with very few companies; for the US and EU gmail probably dominates the private user market. Or, let's say it this way: If someone selfhosting his mail server doesn't receive your mail, it's his problem. If gmail users don't receive your mail, it's your problem. And that's not a sign of decentralisation.