22 ms·

We seem to be nearing peak big tech which does conflict a bit with the nation state system but looking at technology today it does seem to be a temporary phenom

by Sargos 6y ago

We seem to be nearing peak big tech which does conflict a bit with the nation state system but looking at technology today it does seem to be a temporary phenomenon with light at the end of the tunnel. Decentralized protocols that operate at the internet layer above the interference of nation states are being built and deployed today and while they are still in their infancy they have a clear path to providing a neutral, private, and reliable platform for people from around the world to work together, build together, and coordinate more easily without any big corporations or authoritarian governments corrupting the systems. Facebook/Twitter will be turned into a protocol within 10 years that anyone can use. Permissionless systems like the internet always win over centralized systems over time. Big tech will eventually be remembered the same way as we remember AOL. The future is bright and I'm fairly optimistic. I will enjoy living in a post-nation state driven world where humanity works together as a whole towards our common goals.

cle 6y ago
Could you elaborate on what those protocols are, how they help, what their weaknesses are, and what work remains? I'm really curious to learn more about this area. (Even just a link summarizing this would be awesome.)
- parasubvert 6y ago
  The closest thing to this currently is Mastodon. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... There are a lot of open hard technology and business problems to make decentralized systems act as good as centralized systems. In short, The web architecture (HTTP, HTML, URI, MIME) inherently is decentralized for consumption but encourages centralized updates. Many years ago I wrote about these technical challenges and some ideas for solutions on “the Write Side of the Web”. https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    Mastodon, does not operate above the ability of a nation state to block Mastodon. At the info tech department of a large flagship university recently, (and for reasons that are a bit salacious), there was a need to block mastodon servers on campus and some coming from off campus. It was almost as easy as the flip of a switch to turn it off. If a university can do it on their network, it's a virtual certainty that a nation state can do the same.
    - yaomtc 6y ago
      Did this university ban the use of Tor?
    - riffic 6y ago
      That's discouraging. You know MIT runs its own mastodon instance, right? https://mastodon.mit.edu/about https://mastodon.mit.edu/about
- Sargos 6y ago
  I love talking about this stuff but it does have a lot of technical jargon and dependent knowledge that is very difficult to convey simply. I'll try my best. Also this stuff is still being designed and built so some of it is not even concrete yet. Getting really into this would be a big article too so I'll try to be brief but not too much. The basic premise is that protocols are more powerful than centralized entities as they are permissionless (anyone can use them without asking first), uncensorable (you can build a business on top of it without worrying about the platform disappearing from under you), and decentralized (no one single entity controls it and thus it becomes a public good). The internet has all of these properties which is why we all use it. Nobody built a Google on top of AOL for the same reason nobody built a successful business on top of Twitter (look this up if curious). Protocols were limited until the invention of shared trust (Ethereum etc) but can now be instantiated for many kinds of discrete data and operations. Protocols are currently being built for identity (BrightID, POAP, many others), commerce (NFTs for art like Rarible, God's Unchained, etc, pretty much a standard way for everyone in the world to exchange physical goods which enables things like OpenSea which is a digital Ebay), primitive social protocols (Peepeth[not a great example but does the trick], Gitcoin, etc) with many more that I'm running out of time to list. The important thing is that all of these protocols are open for everyone to use and even modify. Everyone is running on a shared data set and even more importantly they all weave together. Many apps are using an identity protocol for all user account type interactions alongside the NFT protocols for representing the objects used in the system. The protocols themselves handle the complexity and enable the scale needed for a single fair system to be used everywhere without the negative effects that would have in today's society (Google running the comments everywhere on the web would be a dystopia, but a Usenet group for each website would actually be nice). Years of work remain and most protocols are still in the early days. The protocol that weaves a whole bunch of smaller ones together into a cohesive social network is also years away as it relies on the smaller protocols such as identity, file storage (IPFS), systems of moderation (DAOs, Kleros, etc) et all to be further developed to the point where others can take them and create something grander than the sum of the parts. Hundreds of groups of people are all working hard on lots of aspects of these systems together. It will take time but even the progress today is rather exciting and feels like the early days of the internet itself. (I'm not the best writer and I have a feeling this was a bit disjointed and not super helpful so sorry in advance and I can try to follow up on things if anyone is still interested.)
hugi 6y ago
What utter nonsense. Facebook and Twitter will not turn themselves into protocols unless explicitly forced to do so by authorities. It's in their interest to be monopolies.
- Sargos 6y ago
  I didn't say they will turn themselves into protocols. The social protocols that are developed will displace those corporations over time as they provide more functionality with fewer restrictions.
  - KittenInABox 6y ago
    This can only happen if we have strong anti-monopoly measures in place to prevent big tech from artificially smothering the competition in the crib.
  - anonymousab 6y ago
    The current tech giants will adopt what they can control and will crush whatever they can't. Either technologically, fiscally, politically, legislative or socially.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    How would an ungoverned corporation be less evil than one subject to democratic laws?
    - Sargos 6y ago
      Facebook is not subject to democratic laws as they ignore most of them and only follow certain ones from a small group of about a dozen countries. A decentralized organization is governed by the public which is more democratic than other systems that exist today.
      - animal_spirits 6y ago
        Are there good cases of Facebook ignoring democratic laws? I've never really heard of Facebook doing anything that isn't in violation of laws (United States laws at least, I cant say other countries). For the U.S. the laws just aren't there yet to put the right restrictions on Facebook
parasubvert 6y ago
I share your optimism, though I think there remain significant economic and technology headwinds that have been slowing down the development of decentralized web technologies. I spoke about the technical considerations several years ago at the W3C annual conference: https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...
julienb_sea 6y ago
This is pretty incoherent frankly. I don't agree with the categorization of the present as "peak big tech". Most tech firms have long roadmaps and global expansion plans, we are hardly at the peak. Every social network that has gained any significant popularity (>100M users) is built on a closed system. Email is the only open protocol system that is relevant to bring up, and its flaws and shortcomings are well documented. Most enterprises use a closed system on top of email (Office 365 or G suite primarily) and communication is migrating to entirely closed systems (Slack or Teams). Closed systems offer huge advantages for innovation, providing excellent user experience and strong privacy controls. As such, closed systems will continue to be the dominant paradigm.
- Sargos 6y ago
  It wasn't feasible to build an effective decentralized social network until a few years ago. It's still not really feasible today but thousands of people are working on it and progress is being made. I think email is a great example as it's a highly successful protocol that unifies most applications together. When you go to a website you sign up with your email. It's universal. You can guarantee that someone can interface with you via email in a way you can't with centralized services like Facebook. There have been some businesses that primarily work on Facebook but it's uncommon and they always have email as a backup. If you want to notify someone of something or provide an official service it will be over email. Email wins because it's decentralized, warts and all.

by Sargos 6y ago

cle 6y ago

Could you elaborate on what those protocols are, how they help, what their weaknesses are, and what work remains? I'm really curious to learn more about this area. (Even just a link summarizing this would be awesome.)

parasubvert 6y ago
The closest thing to this currently is Mastodon. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... There are a lot of open hard technology and business problems to make decentralized systems act as good as centralized systems. In short, The web architecture (HTTP, HTML, URI, MIME) inherently is decentralized for consumption but encourages centralized updates. Many years ago I wrote about these technical challenges and some ideas for solutions on “the Write Side of the Web”. https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  Mastodon, does not operate above the ability of a nation state to block Mastodon. At the info tech department of a large flagship university recently, (and for reasons that are a bit salacious), there was a need to block mastodon servers on campus and some coming from off campus. It was almost as easy as the flip of a switch to turn it off. If a university can do it on their network, it's a virtual certainty that a nation state can do the same.
  - yaomtc 6y ago
    Did this university ban the use of Tor?
  - riffic 6y ago
    That's discouraging. You know MIT runs its own mastodon instance, right? https://mastodon.mit.edu/about https://mastodon.mit.edu/about
Sargos 6y ago
I love talking about this stuff but it does have a lot of technical jargon and dependent knowledge that is very difficult to convey simply. I'll try my best. Also this stuff is still being designed and built so some of it is not even concrete yet. Getting really into this would be a big article too so I'll try to be brief but not too much. The basic premise is that protocols are more powerful than centralized entities as they are permissionless (anyone can use them without asking first), uncensorable (you can build a business on top of it without worrying about the platform disappearing from under you), and decentralized (no one single entity controls it and thus it becomes a public good). The internet has all of these properties which is why we all use it. Nobody built a Google on top of AOL for the same reason nobody built a successful business on top of Twitter (look this up if curious). Protocols were limited until the invention of shared trust (Ethereum etc) but can now be instantiated for many kinds of discrete data and operations. Protocols are currently being built for identity (BrightID, POAP, many others), commerce (NFTs for art like Rarible, God's Unchained, etc, pretty much a standard way for everyone in the world to exchange physical goods which enables things like OpenSea which is a digital Ebay), primitive social protocols (Peepeth[not a great example but does the trick], Gitcoin, etc) with many more that I'm running out of time to list. The important thing is that all of these protocols are open for everyone to use and even modify. Everyone is running on a shared data set and even more importantly they all weave together. Many apps are using an identity protocol for all user account type interactions alongside the NFT protocols for representing the objects used in the system. The protocols themselves handle the complexity and enable the scale needed for a single fair system to be used everywhere without the negative effects that would have in today's society (Google running the comments everywhere on the web would be a dystopia, but a Usenet group for each website would actually be nice). Years of work remain and most protocols are still in the early days. The protocol that weaves a whole bunch of smaller ones together into a cohesive social network is also years away as it relies on the smaller protocols such as identity, file storage (IPFS), systems of moderation (DAOs, Kleros, etc) et all to be further developed to the point where others can take them and create something grander than the sum of the parts. Hundreds of groups of people are all working hard on lots of aspects of these systems together. It will take time but even the progress today is rather exciting and feels like the early days of the internet itself. (I'm not the best writer and I have a feeling this was a bit disjointed and not super helpful so sorry in advance and I can try to follow up on things if anyone is still interested.)

hugi 6y ago

What utter nonsense. Facebook and Twitter will not turn themselves into protocols unless explicitly forced to do so by authorities. It's in their interest to be monopolies.

Sargos 6y ago
I didn't say they will turn themselves into protocols. The social protocols that are developed will displace those corporations over time as they provide more functionality with fewer restrictions.
- KittenInABox 6y ago
  This can only happen if we have strong anti-monopoly measures in place to prevent big tech from artificially smothering the competition in the crib.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  The current tech giants will adopt what they can control and will crush whatever they can't. Either technologically, fiscally, politically, legislative or socially.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  How would an ungoverned corporation be less evil than one subject to democratic laws?
  - Sargos 6y ago
    Facebook is not subject to democratic laws as they ignore most of them and only follow certain ones from a small group of about a dozen countries. A decentralized organization is governed by the public which is more democratic than other systems that exist today.
    - animal_spirits 6y ago
      Are there good cases of Facebook ignoring democratic laws? I've never really heard of Facebook doing anything that isn't in violation of laws (United States laws at least, I cant say other countries). For the U.S. the laws just aren't there yet to put the right restrictions on Facebook

parasubvert 6y ago

I share your optimism, though I think there remain significant economic and technology headwinds that have been slowing down the development of decentralized web technologies. I spoke about the technical considerations several years ago at the W3C annual conference: https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...

julienb_sea 6y ago

This is pretty incoherent frankly. I don't agree with the categorization of the present as "peak big tech". Most tech firms have long roadmaps and global expansion plans, we are hardly at the peak. Every social network that has gained any significant popularity (>100M users) is built on a closed system. Email is the only open protocol system that is relevant to bring up, and its flaws and shortcomings are well documented. Most enterprises use a closed system on top of email (Office 365 or G suite primarily) and communication is migrating to entirely closed systems (Slack or Teams). Closed systems offer huge advantages for innovation, providing excellent user experience and strong privacy controls. As such, closed systems will continue to be the dominant paradigm.

Sargos 6y ago
It wasn't feasible to build an effective decentralized social network until a few years ago. It's still not really feasible today but thousands of people are working on it and progress is being made. I think email is a great example as it's a highly successful protocol that unifies most applications together. When you go to a website you sign up with your email. It's universal. You can guarantee that someone can interface with you via email in a way you can't with centralized services like Facebook. There have been some businesses that primarily work on Facebook but it's uncommon and they always have email as a backup. If you want to notify someone of something or provide an official service it will be over email. Email wins because it's decentralized, warts and all.