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Find a way to better decentralize it, so that it doesn't rely on single hosts(and later sites) as the source of truth for any particular function. The original

Find a way to better decentralize it, so that it doesn't rely on single hosts(and later sites) as the source of truth for any particular function. The original idea was that protocols would allow any one to participate by simply making their own webpage. But dynamic IP addresses, the DNS system, and even just HTML design were out of reach for most people so that got lost and monsterous websites under centralized control became the mediators for most people. So if we could find a way to bake that decentralization into the protocols even more strongly while making them accessible to non-technical people, that's the change I would make. The aim is to create a world where central platforms are not dominant, but any user can easily participate in the communication protocols with out there being a central point to collect all the data or force changes from. ...of course, I have no idea how one would go about doing that, and there in lies the rub.

Jtsummers 5y ago
You seem to be talking about WWW and not the Internet. The Internet itself was designed to be decentralized, in fact that was a major motivator (distributed command & control in the case of a major war cutting off large chunks of the C&C groups from each other or eliminating them entirely). Now, it could've been done in a better fashion, more deliberately, or more broadly, but there are at least two notable early protocols with decentralization/distribution in mind: email (consisting of several protocols) and nntp. Now an individual may still access a, to them, centralized authority for sending/receiving content, but the protocols themselves were meant to support a distributed architecture.
- dbingham 5y ago
  While yes, "the internet" and "www" are different systems, the latter built on top of the former, in practice "the internet" and "www" are one in the same. When we're talking - culturally - about problems with the internet, we mean the problems with "www".
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    In practice they are not the same thing. And the original prompt poses sending you back to the 1960s, about 30 years before the WWW came into existence.
  - mbreese 5y ago
    If we’re starting from the 60s, there’s no guarantee that by now the two would be practically the same (which isn’t a given, even now).
beckman466 5y ago
> So if we could find a way to bake that decentralization into the protocols even more strongly while making them accessible to non-technical people, that's the change I would make. Have you heard of Holochain? "Holochain is an open source framework for building fully distributed, peer-to-peer applications. Holochain is BitTorrent + Git + Cryptographic Signatures + Peer Validation + Gossip (data propagation). Holochain apps are versatile, resilient, scalable, and thousands of times more efficient than blockchain (no token or mining required). The purpose of Holochain is to enable humans to interact with each other by mutual-consent to a shared set of rules, without relying on any authority to dictate or unilaterally change those rules. Peer-to-peer interaction means you own and control your data, with no intermediary (e.g., Google, Facebook, Uber) collecting, selling, or losing it."
handrous 5y ago
> The aim is to create a world where central platforms are not dominant Centralization has been greatly enabled by it being legal to hoover up all kinds of user data and monetize it by selling ads or using it for ML training. Huge moats, unassailable by anyone trying to charge money directly and discouraging interest and participation even in free, volunteer efforts (since the commercial ones are already no-charge...) while encouraging players to jealously keep their users captive, avoiding open protocols and certainly not developing new ones (notice how application-level network protocol development and support started to dry up fast as FB and Google's money-printing machines really started to get going?). I'd say the shortest path to fixing the Internet is making that illegal, especially since that activity is also horrible and dangerous for other reasons. Ideally, the same law would hamstring the credit reporting agencies and also keep banks and other financial institutions from using/selling your data.
Seirdy 5y ago
Tor's hidden services and the Yggdrasil network are examples of decentralized alternatives to the DNS system.

Jtsummers 5y ago

You seem to be talking about WWW and not the Internet. The Internet itself was designed to be decentralized, in fact that was a major motivator (distributed command & control in the case of a major war cutting off large chunks of the C&C groups from each other or eliminating them entirely). Now, it could've been done in a better fashion, more deliberately, or more broadly, but there are at least two notable early protocols with decentralization/distribution in mind: email (consisting of several protocols) and nntp. Now an individual may still access a, to them, centralized authority for sending/receiving content, but the protocols themselves were meant to support a distributed architecture.

dbingham 5y ago
While yes, "the internet" and "www" are different systems, the latter built on top of the former, in practice "the internet" and "www" are one in the same. When we're talking - culturally - about problems with the internet, we mean the problems with "www".
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  In practice they are not the same thing. And the original prompt poses sending you back to the 1960s, about 30 years before the WWW came into existence.
- mbreese 5y ago
  If we’re starting from the 60s, there’s no guarantee that by now the two would be practically the same (which isn’t a given, even now).

beckman466 5y ago

> So if we could find a way to bake that decentralization into the protocols even more strongly while making them accessible to non-technical people, that's the change I would make. Have you heard of Holochain? "Holochain is an open source framework for building fully distributed, peer-to-peer applications. Holochain is BitTorrent + Git + Cryptographic Signatures + Peer Validation + Gossip (data propagation). Holochain apps are versatile, resilient, scalable, and thousands of times more efficient than blockchain (no token or mining required). The purpose of Holochain is to enable humans to interact with each other by mutual-consent to a shared set of rules, without relying on any authority to dictate or unilaterally change those rules. Peer-to-peer interaction means you own and control your data, with no intermediary (e.g., Google, Facebook, Uber) collecting, selling, or losing it."

handrous 5y ago

> The aim is to create a world where central platforms are not dominant Centralization has been greatly enabled by it being legal to hoover up all kinds of user data and monetize it by selling ads or using it for ML training. Huge moats, unassailable by anyone trying to charge money directly and discouraging interest and participation even in free, volunteer efforts (since the commercial ones are already no-charge...) while encouraging players to jealously keep their users captive, avoiding open protocols and certainly not developing new ones (notice how application-level network protocol development and support started to dry up fast as FB and Google's money-printing machines really started to get going?). I'd say the shortest path to fixing the Internet is making that illegal, especially since that activity is also horrible and dangerous for other reasons. Ideally, the same law would hamstring the credit reporting agencies and also keep banks and other financial institutions from using/selling your data.

Seirdy 5y ago

Tor's hidden services and the Yggdrasil network are examples of decentralized alternatives to the DNS system.