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Just a thought experiment: but could we have designed better protocols to not need companies like Google (search) and Facebook (social network)... For example:

by anonu 5y ago

Just a thought experiment: but could we have designed better protocols to not need companies like Google (search) and Facebook (social network)... For example: a public index service (akin to DNS) where all pages upload all hyperlinks they were using. The end result is a massive graph that you can do PageRank on. You'd have to add some protections to avoid it getting gamed... Email was the first decentralized social network and with it came bulletin board services and groups. Could these concepts have been developed a bit further or been a bit more user friendly while remaining decentralized?

gfody 5y ago
the first search engines worked this way - you'd submit your site to their index in a certain category with some keywords, and anyone could explore the index. they all seemed to realize around the same time that they ought to keep their indexes secret from one another and they vanished just like that.