3 ms·

The decentralization of the internet should be increasingly important as we see government and corporate censorship increase. I couldn't care less about the mon

by hilyen 5y ago

The decentralization of the internet should be increasingly important as we see government and corporate censorship increase. I couldn't care less about the money aspect, I look forward to decentralized apps replacing corporate controlled public spaces.

fnord77 5y ago
you don't need a blockchain to have decentralized networks
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  No, but, considering a blockchain is literally just a distributed log, it certainly helps to have decentralized networks in order to implement blockchains.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    Internet is already decentralized TCP/IP doesn't care who you are and where you come from blockchains solve problems like "how can we order all our transactions and write them on this global immutable, append only log, so that anybody can see them?" a problem I never had, honestly.
agumonkey 5y ago
I keep reading how the web must mean something politically but so far all I see is weakening of spirits and noisy if not dangerous distraction (and mob mentality). To me less web, and less means imply deeper human investment.
danShumway 5y ago
I'll add on top of the article's claims, crypto is also not solving any decentralization problems that are interesting to me. There are a few interesting ideas with the blockchain, and it was something that was worth looking into at least initially. It's something that could be iterated on, it's not useless. But at this point, it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that as a general strategy, federation is a better approach to decentralization than the blockchains' vision. Around the parts of decentralization that actually matter to me, and in particular in regards to anti-corporate/anarchist spaces, blockchains have almost universally ended up fairing worse than simpler federated projects. The introduction of a "ledger" in the first place seems to be a magnet for the exact corporate/government attention that people say they want to avoid. I've also seen a lot of attempts at turning the blockchain into a tool for app creation and community management, but as far as I can tell none of them have turned out to be particularly noteworthy or useful -- there's not a lot there where I'm looking at it and thinking, "this shows massive potential." So when I think about my limited time on this earth, I am much more inclined to spend it following and supporting stuff like Matrix, Mastodon, Peertube; heck, even the really "boring" stuff like just increased pressure on Apple to support web apps better on iOS is going to have a much bigger impact on decentralized, anti-corporate app creation than almost anything I can see coming out of Ethereum right now. It's not that there's zero value in the blockchain as a concept or zero potential, if people want to do engineering in that space then fine, I guess. But I look at what the blockchain spaces are putting out right now, and it's just not comparable to any of the other efforts that are going on with decentralization. It turns out that securely syncing an uncontrolled ledger is not as important of a problem or as useful as we thought it might be. The closest thing I've seen here to an actually exciting project is Handshake, and Handshake has a ton of problems, it's not a great, permanent solution to the problem of DNS ownership. It just happens to be one of the very few, narrow areas where a shared ledger really does matter.
ativzzz 5y ago
Don't cryptocurrencies just centralize the power for whatever groups own the most miners? Sure one group won't have a dictatorship, but it's essentially an oligopoly. It's like if you claim the U.S. congress is decentralized because there are representatives from each of the 50 states, which is a valid argument despite congress ultimately becoming a centralized power unit, but in this case each of the representatives just buys more mining equipment compared to their competitors.
jankyxenon 5y ago
We can already do this without blockchain. Think about Wikipedia. Yes there is still some bias injected into the editorial process - but is it a better or worse than a truly decentralized free for all?
twic 5y ago
The internet was decentralised, for years, before it got enclosed into a series of corporate walled gardens. We already have all the technology we need for a decentralised internet.
- noxer 5y ago
  As soon as you do anything the old way you get sued. You cant even allow a user to upload a profile picture to your server because the user could upload something illegal and you dont have team of lawyer like the big guys. They just turn you off and sue your lifesaving away. That we have the old tech is completely meaningless.

by hilyen 5y ago

fnord77 5y ago

you don't need a blockchain to have decentralized networks

actually_a_dog 5y ago
No, but, considering a blockchain is literally just a distributed log, it certainly helps to have decentralized networks in order to implement blockchains.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  Internet is already decentralized TCP/IP doesn't care who you are and where you come from blockchains solve problems like "how can we order all our transactions and write them on this global immutable, append only log, so that anybody can see them?" a problem I never had, honestly.

agumonkey 5y ago

I keep reading how the web must mean something politically but so far all I see is weakening of spirits and noisy if not dangerous distraction (and mob mentality). To me less web, and less means imply deeper human investment.

danShumway 5y ago

I'll add on top of the article's claims, crypto is also not solving any decentralization problems that are interesting to me. There are a few interesting ideas with the blockchain, and it was something that was worth looking into at least initially. It's something that could be iterated on, it's not useless. But at this point, it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that as a general strategy, federation is a better approach to decentralization than the blockchains' vision. Around the parts of decentralization that actually matter to me, and in particular in regards to anti-corporate/anarchist spaces, blockchains have almost universally ended up fairing worse than simpler federated projects. The introduction of a "ledger" in the first place seems to be a magnet for the exact corporate/government attention that people say they want to avoid. I've also seen a lot of attempts at turning the blockchain into a tool for app creation and community management, but as far as I can tell none of them have turned out to be particularly noteworthy or useful -- there's not a lot there where I'm looking at it and thinking, "this shows massive potential." So when I think about my limited time on this earth, I am much more inclined to spend it following and supporting stuff like Matrix, Mastodon, Peertube; heck, even the really "boring" stuff like just increased pressure on Apple to support web apps better on iOS is going to have a much bigger impact on decentralized, anti-corporate app creation than almost anything I can see coming out of Ethereum right now. It's not that there's zero value in the blockchain as a concept or zero potential, if people want to do engineering in that space then fine, I guess. But I look at what the blockchain spaces are putting out right now, and it's just not comparable to any of the other efforts that are going on with decentralization. It turns out that securely syncing an uncontrolled ledger is not as important of a problem or as useful as we thought it might be. The closest thing I've seen here to an actually exciting project is Handshake, and Handshake has a ton of problems, it's not a great, permanent solution to the problem of DNS ownership. It just happens to be one of the very few, narrow areas where a shared ledger really does matter.

ativzzz 5y ago

Don't cryptocurrencies just centralize the power for whatever groups own the most miners? Sure one group won't have a dictatorship, but it's essentially an oligopoly. It's like if you claim the U.S. congress is decentralized because there are representatives from each of the 50 states, which is a valid argument despite congress ultimately becoming a centralized power unit, but in this case each of the representatives just buys more mining equipment compared to their competitors.

jankyxenon 5y ago

We can already do this without blockchain. Think about Wikipedia. Yes there is still some bias injected into the editorial process - but is it a better or worse than a truly decentralized free for all?

twic 5y ago

The internet was decentralised, for years, before it got enclosed into a series of corporate walled gardens. We already have all the technology we need for a decentralised internet.

noxer 5y ago
As soon as you do anything the old way you get sued. You cant even allow a user to upload a profile picture to your server because the user could upload something illegal and you dont have team of lawyer like the big guys. They just turn you off and sue your lifesaving away. That we have the old tech is completely meaningless.