47 ms·

Thinking About Decentralized Communities

53 points by SubGenius 6y ago

iphorde 6y ago
I would agree that a decentralized web is to the benefit of everyone, but we have most on the far left, and most corporations pushing for a centralized web. When the far left, and corporations have both aligned on an issue, we're going to get screwed. The center right, and center left will never agree, or unify to create a policy that decentralizes anything. This means, the far left, and corporations will win, a strange pair indeed. The only counter is to centralize with opposing points of view, because nothing fractured ever is sustainable.
- ThatGeoGuy 6y ago
  I think the fact that you characterize this as "far-left" is problematic. Authoritarianism and censorship are independent of left or right leaning politics, and have existed on all sides of the political spectrum in the past. See censorship in Stalin's communism (left) vs. censorship in Nazi Germany (right).
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    It's a far left issue because the people on the right are constitution freaks that love guns, god and saying whatever the fuck they want consequences be damned.
    - halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
      Let’s be frank here, the people on the right are constitution freaks for people who look _like them_. They aren’t freaks about the spirit of the constitution, only one that maintains their (white) supremacy.
      - pstuart 6y ago
        Cafeteria constitutionalists.
      - iphorde 6y ago
        Yes, lets be frank. I believe the Constitution is color blind. The words, "All men are created equal...", did not specify a race. The problem the right has the how the left tells them how to think. This is where progressives go wrong. Stop telling people how they should think.
        CuriouslyC 6y ago
        That's a problem on both sides. Conservatives are judgmental AF about a lot of things. Frankly, I doubt the two sides are ever going to come to proper terms, and the best solution is just to give power back to the states. Then you can have libtard Portland and klan Mississippi, and people who don't like it can just move.
- Galaxeblaffer 6y ago
  Is the far left really pushing for a centralized web ? Would you mind backing this statement up ?
  - ibeckermayer 6y ago
    All the far-left groups and individuals pushing for the censorship of “hate” and “misinformation” are pushing for a centralized web.
    - WJW 6y ago
      Can you back up that only far left groups are against hate and misinformation? Those topics seem like topic that everyone would be against? (Writing this from the EU, where most of the people have watched the past US election season with... "amazement". Especially the way in which both sides seem to feel they are the oppressed side.)
      - zreltemple 6y ago
        They posted those words in quotation marks. They're also subjective and prone to being defined by those with power. It'll be interesting to see how EU/Western Europe copes over the next 20 years, if they cope at all.
      - iphorde 6y ago
        Can you back up? Dude, pull your head out of the ground. Liberals are a dying breed. Liberalism is dying.
    - CuriouslyC 6y ago
      They're pushing for censorship on social media, but I wouldn't say that has extended to the internet as a whole. Nobody's asking for email filters or website blacklisting.
      - jsnk 6y ago
        It goes well beyond social media, and internet. There are coordinated attacks by organizations with huge financial backings against political dissidents socially, financially and politically. Social media censorship is only the beginning. They already have come for people's livelihoods, bank accounts, jobs etc. Total castration seems like the end goal.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  Neither corporations, nor the far left can do anything about existing federated protocols, such as email, nor will they be able to prevent future federated protocols.
  - cttet 6y ago
    They can. A white list will easily do that. Without net neutrality white lists would be more and more popular IMO
jsnk 6y ago
Is Gurlic open source?
- SubGenius 6y ago
  Not yet, but soon. It's very hacky at the moment!
  - INTPenis 6y ago
    Maybe that should be in the FAQ. I had to search the HN thread to figure it out.
    - SubGenius 6y ago
      You're right. I'll add it to the FAQ.
rmrfstar 6y ago
The second requirement bullet point is solid, but I think it goes to far. Obviously user onboarding is a huge issue for new paradigms, and simplicity is paramount. But I think it's wrong to suggest that non-browser clients are not the way forward. Look at Whatsapp or Signal.
- musingsole 6y ago
  If Gurlic employs Clean Architecture, delivering its community to users through a web app or non-browser client is a decision that should be deferred or designed such that you could switch without rewriting most code. But jesus I hate that book.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cousin_it 6y ago
I love the art page (gurlic.art). But for some reason it doesn't work reliably for me, many of the links go to "about:blank#blocked". Doesn't happen on every reload, and seems to happen less on gurlic.com/art.
- SubGenius 6y ago
  Thanks for letting me know, I'll take a look.
er4hn 6y ago
I would modify your point #1 (decentralization must never be promoted to be a feature) to state: Openness, be it via a public API or freedom to take data out, should not be a central feature. Looking at the history of successful applications (Spotify, Facebook, Twitter) they have all offered a simple and well crafted experience, with open APIs at the start. I realize that they still have some form of APIs but they have been severely curtailed from their early days in all of my examples. The openness of the APIs offers those interested the ability to create their own features on top of a base (Facebook games back in the day, Spotify's song previews on NYTimes "Best Music of 2020", etc) while still maintaining a central point that normal users can come to for the default experience. By letting power users build on top of it more users can be drawn in by the interested developers experimenting with new features and experiences. In a way, these hip, modern, and flashy companies remind me of the ancient and dual unix philosophies of: "Do one thing, but do it well" and, for the power users, "give them just enough rope to hang themselves".
- kodah 6y ago
  > The openness of the APIs offers those interested the ability to create their own features on top of a base The tough thing is that those companies often close or undocument those public APIs because serving you ads is always more profitable than not. Open APIs also encourage aggregating and refinement behavior, which if done outside the parent company would be a detriment to their profits as well. You're, in essence, asking one of two things: - Figure out how to monetize APIs - Change the incentives of the web to be less corporate The latter would require that the web be significantly cheaper to run. The former would create quite an equal access and innovation problem.
chrisco255 6y ago
> Any and all cryptocurrency/blockchain must be avoided. Care to elaborate on that statement? If you ever hope to monetize your decentralized community, how do you hope to do that without crypto? Accept PayPal? Rely on Google for advertising revenue sharing? With the increasing willingness to enforce censorship at the payment layer, it's very dubious to create a "decentralized" community without that key piece being also decentralized.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  I'm not the author, but I guess everyone who runs an instance can monetize it their way, just like email providers - some use ads, some charge money, etc.
- SubGenius 6y ago
  It would be up to each instance to figure out how they want to monetize their community, or if they even want to. If there's more censorship at the payment layer, I don't see how crypto will be left alone.
- _peeley 6y ago
  I'd also like to know the reasoning behind this. It seems like every reason behind supporting decentralized communities would lend one to also support decentralized financial infrastructure like cryptocurrencies. Also strange that one would be specifically opposed to cryptocurrencies, as any criticism of crypto (abuse, kind of communities it attracts, etc) applies just as much to decentralized software in general.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
There's a problem with links to attachments, like this: https://https//static.gurlic.com/post-attachment/75971640500512653685919170715861attachment.pdf https://https//static.gurlic.com/post-attachment/75971640500... From this page: https://gurlic.com/software/post/332791159409606661 https://gurlic.com/software/post/332791159409606661
- SubGenius 6y ago
  Thanks. Should be fixed now.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    Thanks, it works now.
jancsika 6y ago
> Decentralization can be a priority, but must never be promoted as a feature, or made to be a selling point. When decentralization becomes the main selling point of a product or service, the usability and polish tend to suffer. Not always, but nearly always. None of the marketing copy should include the words 'decentralization', 'privacy' etc. Normal users don't care about any of this. I think this isn't quite the case-- these projects "nearly always" suffer due to decentralization being a priority. Outside of perhaps darpanet, the decentralized projects that succeed do so because the decentralization is merely a value-neutral means to an end that satisfies a central use case. E.g., compare usage of git to usage of every tool that tries to decentralize more parts of git in service of the general virtue of more decentralization. Edit: clarification
holler 6y ago
> and I'm at a point in my life where I avoid that at all costs. I can only talk about my preferences about the world, not about how things ought to be, implying some sort of inherent value or divine moral good. It sounds like you are scratching your own itch, which more often than not, is cited here on HN as a leading strategy for building new projects. I tend to agree with your viewpoint on decentralization as a value-add versus a core feature. For instance, some companies may be adopting DLT databases because it eloquently solves a problem for them, but not so they can market the project as "blockchain". Best of luck!

53 points by SubGenius 6y ago

I would agree that a decentralized web is to the benefit of everyone, but we have most on the far left, and most corporations pushing for a centralized web. When the far left, and corporations have both aligned on an issue, we're going to get screwed. The center right, and center left will never agree, or unify to create a policy that decentralizes anything. This means, the far left, and corporations will win, a strange pair indeed. The only counter is to centralize with opposing points of view, because nothing fractured ever is sustainable.

ThatGeoGuy 6y ago
I think the fact that you characterize this as "far-left" is problematic. Authoritarianism and censorship are independent of left or right leaning politics, and have existed on all sides of the political spectrum in the past. See censorship in Stalin's communism (left) vs. censorship in Nazi Germany (right).
- CuriouslyC 6y ago
  It's a far left issue because the people on the right are constitution freaks that love guns, god and saying whatever the fuck they want consequences be damned.
  - halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
    Let’s be frank here, the people on the right are constitution freaks for people who look _like them_. They aren’t freaks about the spirit of the constitution, only one that maintains their (white) supremacy.
    - pstuart 6y ago
      Cafeteria constitutionalists.
    - iphorde 6y ago
      Yes, lets be frank. I believe the Constitution is color blind. The words, "All men are created equal...", did not specify a race. The problem the right has the how the left tells them how to think. This is where progressives go wrong. Stop telling people how they should think.
      - CuriouslyC 6y ago
        That's a problem on both sides. Conservatives are judgmental AF about a lot of things. Frankly, I doubt the two sides are ever going to come to proper terms, and the best solution is just to give power back to the states. Then you can have libtard Portland and klan Mississippi, and people who don't like it can just move.
Galaxeblaffer 6y ago
Is the far left really pushing for a centralized web ? Would you mind backing this statement up ?
- ibeckermayer 6y ago
  All the far-left groups and individuals pushing for the censorship of “hate” and “misinformation” are pushing for a centralized web.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Can you back up that only far left groups are against hate and misinformation? Those topics seem like topic that everyone would be against? (Writing this from the EU, where most of the people have watched the past US election season with... "amazement". Especially the way in which both sides seem to feel they are the oppressed side.)
    - zreltemple 6y ago
      They posted those words in quotation marks. They're also subjective and prone to being defined by those with power. It'll be interesting to see how EU/Western Europe copes over the next 20 years, if they cope at all.
    - iphorde 6y ago
      Can you back up? Dude, pull your head out of the ground. Liberals are a dying breed. Liberalism is dying.
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    They're pushing for censorship on social media, but I wouldn't say that has extended to the internet as a whole. Nobody's asking for email filters or website blacklisting.
    - jsnk 6y ago
      It goes well beyond social media, and internet. There are coordinated attacks by organizations with huge financial backings against political dissidents socially, financially and politically. Social media censorship is only the beginning. They already have come for people's livelihoods, bank accounts, jobs etc. Total castration seems like the end goal.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
Neither corporations, nor the far left can do anything about existing federated protocols, such as email, nor will they be able to prevent future federated protocols.
- cttet 6y ago
  They can. A white list will easily do that. Without net neutrality white lists would be more and more popular IMO

jsnk 6y ago

Is Gurlic open source?

SubGenius 6y ago
Not yet, but soon. It's very hacky at the moment!
- INTPenis 6y ago
  Maybe that should be in the FAQ. I had to search the HN thread to figure it out.
  - SubGenius 6y ago
    You're right. I'll add it to the FAQ.

rmrfstar 6y ago

The second requirement bullet point is solid, but I think it goes to far. Obviously user onboarding is a huge issue for new paradigms, and simplicity is paramount. But I think it's wrong to suggest that non-browser clients are not the way forward. Look at Whatsapp or Signal.

musingsole 6y ago
If Gurlic employs Clean Architecture, delivering its community to users through a web app or non-browser client is a decision that should be deferred or designed such that you could switch without rewriting most code. But jesus I hate that book.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cousin_it 6y ago

I love the art page (gurlic.art). But for some reason it doesn't work reliably for me, many of the links go to "about:blank#blocked". Doesn't happen on every reload, and seems to happen less on gurlic.com/art.

SubGenius 6y ago
Thanks for letting me know, I'll take a look.

er4hn 6y ago

I would modify your point #1 (decentralization must never be promoted to be a feature) to state: Openness, be it via a public API or freedom to take data out, should not be a central feature. Looking at the history of successful applications (Spotify, Facebook, Twitter) they have all offered a simple and well crafted experience, with open APIs at the start. I realize that they still have some form of APIs but they have been severely curtailed from their early days in all of my examples. The openness of the APIs offers those interested the ability to create their own features on top of a base (Facebook games back in the day, Spotify's song previews on NYTimes "Best Music of 2020", etc) while still maintaining a central point that normal users can come to for the default experience. By letting power users build on top of it more users can be drawn in by the interested developers experimenting with new features and experiences. In a way, these hip, modern, and flashy companies remind me of the ancient and dual unix philosophies of: "Do one thing, but do it well" and, for the power users, "give them just enough rope to hang themselves".

kodah 6y ago
> The openness of the APIs offers those interested the ability to create their own features on top of a base The tough thing is that those companies often close or undocument those public APIs because serving you ads is always more profitable than not. Open APIs also encourage aggregating and refinement behavior, which if done outside the parent company would be a detriment to their profits as well. You're, in essence, asking one of two things: - Figure out how to monetize APIs - Change the incentives of the web to be less corporate The latter would require that the web be significantly cheaper to run. The former would create quite an equal access and innovation problem.

chrisco255 6y ago

> Any and all cryptocurrency/blockchain must be avoided. Care to elaborate on that statement? If you ever hope to monetize your decentralized community, how do you hope to do that without crypto? Accept PayPal? Rely on Google for advertising revenue sharing? With the increasing willingness to enforce censorship at the payment layer, it's very dubious to create a "decentralized" community without that key piece being also decentralized.

amadeuspagel 6y ago
I'm not the author, but I guess everyone who runs an instance can monetize it their way, just like email providers - some use ads, some charge money, etc.
SubGenius 6y ago
It would be up to each instance to figure out how they want to monetize their community, or if they even want to. If there's more censorship at the payment layer, I don't see how crypto will be left alone.
_peeley 6y ago
I'd also like to know the reasoning behind this. It seems like every reason behind supporting decentralized communities would lend one to also support decentralized financial infrastructure like cryptocurrencies. Also strange that one would be specifically opposed to cryptocurrencies, as any criticism of crypto (abuse, kind of communities it attracts, etc) applies just as much to decentralized software in general.

amadeuspagel 6y ago

There's a problem with links to attachments, like this: https://https//static.gurlic.com/post-attachment/75971640500512653685919170715861attachment.pdf https://https//static.gurlic.com/post-attachment/75971640500... From this page: https://gurlic.com/software/post/332791159409606661 https://gurlic.com/software/post/332791159409606661

SubGenius 6y ago
Thanks. Should be fixed now.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  Thanks, it works now.

jancsika 6y ago

> Decentralization can be a priority, but must never be promoted as a feature, or made to be a selling point. When decentralization becomes the main selling point of a product or service, the usability and polish tend to suffer. Not always, but nearly always. None of the marketing copy should include the words 'decentralization', 'privacy' etc. Normal users don't care about any of this. I think this isn't quite the case-- these projects "nearly always" suffer due to decentralization being a priority. Outside of perhaps darpanet, the decentralized projects that succeed do so because the decentralization is merely a value-neutral means to an end that satisfies a central use case. E.g., compare usage of git to usage of every tool that tries to decentralize more parts of git in service of the general virtue of more decentralization. Edit: clarification

holler 6y ago

> and I'm at a point in my life where I avoid that at all costs. I can only talk about my preferences about the world, not about how things ought to be, implying some sort of inherent value or divine moral good. It sounds like you are scratching your own itch, which more often than not, is cited here on HN as a leading strategy for building new projects. I tend to agree with your viewpoint on decentralization as a value-add versus a core feature. For instance, some companies may be adopting DLT databases because it eloquently solves a problem for them, but not so they can market the project as "blockchain". Best of luck!