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The author's definition of what makes a "decentralized application" is too strong and I don't agree that email isn't an example of a decentralized application.

• bawolff 5y ago
  I think that's the problem with 99% of articles about decentralized/federated/etc systems. Nobody can agree on what properties they want and everyone ends up talking past each other.
  • tartoran 5y ago
    Exactly that is both the strength and the weakness. The strength consists in the inability of any one party to dominate the network. The weakness is the noise and ineffectiveness of communication.
    • bawolff 5y ago
      I think you miss my point. Whether or not its possible for one party to dominate the network is one of the potential properties of a "distributed" system that people cannot agree on if its required in the definition. For example, napster, TOR and IRC are arguably "distributed" systems where there is a central party that controls the network.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • em-bee 5y ago
        there are different definitions for being distributed. IRC is a distributed system much like a CDN is distributed, that is spread across the network. what we are actually interested in is distributed ownership. email is that, as is the web, but IRC is not
        • lolinder 5y ago
          This is exactly what OP was referring to: that's what you are actually interested in, but not everyone.
          • em-bee 5y ago
            yes of course, the article is giving examples how systems with distributed ownership are failing because not everyone cares about that. so distributed ownership is what she is interested in, and hence that is the topic of our discussion.
            • bawolff 5y ago
              That may be so, although the author's own words doesn't clearly state that ("To clarify what I mean by decentralised: applications whose main purpose is fulfilled as part of a network, where that network is not reliant on any preordained nodes." - nothing about ownership there. Master<->Master db replication meets that definition, but is petty clearly not the type of thing you are referring to. Regardless in context you're probably right abouy which definition the author is using). Nonetheless, that doesn't make it any less of a problem that the definitions are severely overloaded. The issue is not that the article is unclear in its definitions (even though it is imo), the issue is that its hard to have discussions about the topic and compare to other articles, because people talk past each other. Words having agreed meanings is important so we can connect ideas to a broader context and not just talk about individual articles in isolation.
        • bawolff 5y ago
          Given the history of efnet, i actually think irc fits really nicely into the author's premise.
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    Someone needs to establish a terminology!
    • Taek 5y ago
      often times when debating another professional we'll start things off by laying out exactly how we're using each term, and for the extent of the debate we'll agree on some specific definitions, or sometimes even make up temporary nonsense words so that the debate can be productive.
    • zdw 5y ago
      https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
      • Dylan16807 5y ago
        There are zero standards for this terminology, aren't there?
        • jcelerier 5y ago
          There is one standard per distributed application research paper https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=distributed+application https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=distributed+application
• swiley 5y ago
  It's important to be able to pick which server you use, if only servers maintained by app developers are allowed companies like Apple dictate the moderation policies.
• granshaw 5y ago
  IMO what you’re describing is usually not considered “decentralized”, but rather “open protocols” or “open standards”
  • monocasa 5y ago
    I don't think so as there exist centralized, open protocols. Email is (at the server level) a peer to peer network, only tied to DNS/BGP as the only central points, with a global namespace. That can't be said for a lot of open standards.
  • Dylan16807 5y ago
    It's more than open standards. XMPP is open but doesn't mean google will federate with you.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Calling decentralised software centralised because companies built good defaults on top is a fallacy. Email, the web and torrents are definitely success story. I don't like cryptocurrencies (those who are unbacked and resource hungry, I like the tech behind) but bringing payments in the software world and out of financial gatekeepers could exactly the missing piece of the puzzle to have even more working decentralised apps. Recognising this doesn't help with criticising capitalism, I guess.
  • casmclas 5y ago
    It isn't a fallacy, and in any case the article isn't claiming that decentralised software has become centralised because companies have built good defaults on top, so that's a complete strawman.
• 3np 5y ago
  Protocols like e-mail, Mastodon and Matrix where the server-to-server protocol is decentralized/peer-to-peer but clients interact with the network through designated servers are generally considered "federated" (which can be either considered as distinct from or a subset of "decentralized") So the author seems to take "decentralized" here to mean "fully decentralized and peer-to-peer", which is indeed an unconventionally strong definition. But later on, they mention IRC, which is centralized by any definition... Actually, the author doesn't seem to be working from a strong definition at all and they seem to have given this very shallow thought and research.
  • tssva 5y ago
    Their definition seems less strong and different than portrayed in your comment. Below is the definition from the article. "To clarify what I mean by decentralised: applications whose main purpose is fulfilled as part of a network, where that network is not reliant on any preordained nodes. Decentralised applications are also known as “federated”. There is also a more specific term “distributed”, also known as “peer to peer”. I won’t cover the distinction with the more specific terms because it’s not relevant here. I use the word application in a looser sense, to also cover protocols and specifications."
    • 3np 5y ago
      I somehow glanced over this, thanks for pointing it out. This definition suggests that "federated" is strictly equal to "decentralized", which is coincidentally not strictly in conflict with what I wrote (though a very unorthodox definition of federated, as it doesn't imply any federation). Even so, IRC has no business in this list per the authors definition.
      • mastax 5y ago
        > Even so, IRC has no business in this list per the authors definition. The "network" part is arguable, but IRC does not require any pre-ordained nodes, which matches the author's definition. It's a small part of full decentralization, but an important one. Being able to point your Facebook Messenger client at a different server would be a big step.
• casmclas 5y ago
  > I don't agree that email isn't an example of a decentralized application. She argues that it's not because it's really hard to run your own mail server. I don't think this is a fair characterisation of the article. She argues that email is an example of something that is failing as a decentralised application: Google's power over email is too strong. This is very different from claiming that it isn't an example of a decentralised application. Email and the web are decentralised applications. But they are not the email and the web of the 1990s, when their decentralisation was the killer feature that saw them beat out centralised networks. To try and live on a non-Google/non-Facebook web is like using Linux on the desktop in 2000: it's certainly possible, but it's a bit of a hairshirt.
  • 0xCMP 5y ago
    Agreed and I will add that a huge reason Google is used by so many was very effective spam filtering. A huge reason why hosting your own email is hard? Getting filtered by Google because of the massive amount of spam they are blocking. Spam filtering is a a very difficult thing to do well and Google's implementation was very good, very advanced, and trained on huge amounts of data. Something a normal person could never do on their own server and those who could would be spending a lot of time training the blocker which those using Google never even needed to think of.
    • bombcar 5y ago
      This seems to be a rule - “inbound” decentralized systems are susceptible to the spam problem - but “outbound” ones like DNS seem to work OK. Nobody cares if you create fifty billion sub domains.
      • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        maybe Google does (or could), not sure where their algorithm stands on many subdomains.
    • eloisius 5y ago
      I’ve occasionally wondered why the responsibility to mitigate abuse can’t be pushed all the way out to edge nodes (individual ISPs and data centers) instead of relying on centralized abuse prevention. I imagine this does happen for certain kinds of abuse, but wouldn’t the threat of others not peering with your node be good motivation for ISPs not to provide services to spammers?
• dboreham 5y ago
  Basically you can be decentralized at the wholesale level but not retail. Like the internet.
• aabbcc1241 5y ago
  Agree, that's the different between decentralized (like github and gitlab) and distributed (peer-to-peer like ipfs and zeronet)
• acjohnson55 5y ago
  She cited email as an example of a decentralized system, in her case studies.
• godelski 5y ago
  > To me, "decentralized" doesn't mean every user has to run their own node. It means it's an open network, anyone can join, and there's no centralized control / censorship. I'm confused, because it seems like you agree with the author. She says >> My statement that email can be used without involving Google is technically true, but anyone they blacklist will quickly realise that they’re largely locked out of the global email network. She is stating that the problem with email isn't that it is an open network, but that it is effectively centralized by a few big players. It might as well be a centralized service. The protocol may be open but if you aren't using a major centralized service you're going to experience a lot more difficulty, including potentially being black listed by these big players. Just getting accidentally classified as spam on one of them and you will locked out. Not to mention dealing with all the spam if you roll your own. > If you become unhappy with them, it's easy to move. I think this is an absurd statement and you know it or you are lying to yourself. Sure, forwarding exists but that's not exactly moving. If you've ever tried moving email addresses you'd know how difficult this is. It's significantly harder than moving phone numbers, which also isn't that easy. Just think of every account that you now need to modify. Sure, you don't need to port every account, but there's more than you probably think.
  • lrvick 5y ago
    I have moved email provider multiple times without any of that pain. It is easy. I just point my domain name at new MX servers.
    • Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      Do you have any advice how to best move the old emails to the new IMAP account? My current provider started getting flaky when they were bought out by a larger one, but I've been putting it off for years trying to move. Maybe offlineimap to a local box, probably best to have your own backup anyway.
      • rakoo 5y ago
        You can use offlineimap or mbsync to transfer from an IMAP server to another IMAP server
• Taek 5y ago
  Using the terminology most commonly found in the crypto space, email is not decentralized but rather federated. This is because participation in the email ecosystem requires permission from other participants in the email ecosystem. If only 5% of the ecosystem is willing to forward your emails, most of your emails aren't going to make it to their destination. Conversely, in the blockchain space anyone can participate in the blockchain. If a miner refuses to mine your transactions, that's profit that another miner can pick up. And if worst comes to worst, you can set up your own mining infrastructure and mine that transaction yourself - if the system is working correctly, you never need permission from someone else at all to participate. (there are some assumptions here, and if you choose to reject those assumptions as valid you can reasonably claim that blockchains aren't decentralized either)
  • tffgg 5y ago
    Federation implies decentralization. Decentralization is derived from centralization...
• zzo38computer 5y ago
  I run my own server for receiving, but use the ISP's server for sending. I have had no problems. But, yes, that doesn't mean you have to run your own node. However, it should include the possibility to do so.
  • em-bee 5y ago
    do you also use your own domain for sending? i can't see how i would host my own mail server with my domain, but then send emails from that domain via someone else. the only way i could see that working is to use the ISP/other service as a relay to forward my mails.
    • zzo38computer 5y ago
      The email address does have my own domain name. This way, responses are sent correctly. The ISP is used as a "smart host" to relay the outgoing messages, while incoming messages come in directly; this is provided as an option when setting up Exim using the package manager.