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It sounds funny to say this, but sometimes I wonder if the obstacles to decentralization are simpler than it seems. Basically, it just requires the "always on a
by derbOac 6y ago
It sounds funny to say this, but sometimes I wonder if the obstacles to decentralization are simpler than it seems. Basically, it just requires the "always on appliance model" of home computers.
I've installed Briar. I like the decentralized aspect. It's certainly not harder to use than Whatsapp or Signal or whatever. However, it requires me to have it running in the background all the time, and requires me to have my phone on. This is a power drain on my phone and sort of a limitation relative to some central server that's always there.
The closest things to this are maybe a router or Alexa or whatever. My guess is if you could expand this to personal servers, like a nextcloud server-type thing in each home that you could expand, decentralization might go somewhere. People get this already, as they put them in their home for IoT, or to stream whatever, etc and so forth. You just get them used to these things being outward facing as well.
I think there will always be a need for centralized computing services, or at least a demand. But decentralization isn't too complicated technically or in terms of UX, it just requires a sort of cultural shift, which isn't really that different from use of Facebook or Twitter. It's just a cultural shift on the hardware side.
Federation and decentralization was a central part of early home computing. There's certainly reasons we moved away from it, but probably also reasons to return to it again.
- vineyardmike 6y ago> People get this already, as they put them in their home for IoT, or to stream whatever, etc and so forth I use apple HomeKit, which requires a "home hub" to be always on (just select apple products basically). So I think its def possible that this could be thing, but I would be skeptical that this can grow too much in the mainstream. I occasionally unplug mine to move it around, and the thought of missing something would scare me out of moving it much (or using it much)
- CryptoPunk 6y agoYes I think you may be right. Dappnode's vision is somewhat similar to what you describe: https://dappnode.io/ https://dappnode.io/ tl;dr An always on node for multiple decentralized networks, and designed to earn the device owner income for that work. For example, Dappnode allows easy deployment of Proof of Stake validation nodes for the Ethereum Beacon Chain for those who have at least 32 ether to stake. I think the key missing link to making Dappnode-like offerings competitive with the market leading web services is compensation for the Dappnode development team. How do you financially incentivize and sustain a volume of development on the Dappnode product that is comparable to what is done on centralized web services, without compromising on decentralization? Value-capture and centralization seem to be intimately linked, so that is a challenge. Funding open source software may be something only governments can do at a sufficient scale. I'm happy to see that in line with that, Dappnode received funding from the EU.
- GoblinSlayer 6y agoI guess Samsung DeX was a mistake, what's your opinion? Indoors you can keep the phone plugged into the grid. Outdoors you're basically offline.