3 ms·
So Web3 is built on blockchains which are decentralized and decentralization confers benefits such as censorship resistance, downtime resistance etc. But block
by apatters 5y ago
So Web3 is built on blockchains which are decentralized and decentralization confers benefits such as censorship resistance, downtime resistance etc.
But blockchains require resources to operate. At great scale they will require great cost. What's to stop powerful actors from leveraging economies of scale and consolidating those resources, then ultimately using their control to manipulate the blockchains themselves?
This is exactly what happened with web servers. The web was initially very decentralized, due to economies of scale it consolidated and is hosted mostly in a few large datacenters now. The owners of those datacenters are by necessity very close partners with the government du jour, and now manipulate the content they host.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y agoThe cost in blockchains usually comes from security garuntees, but there's a strong force of resisting centralization in many forms in the blockchain space, e.g. https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html We'll see what the endgame actually is as time inexorably marches on
- apatters 5y agoIn that post Vitalik actually says he thinks there's a high chance block production will end up centralized. If it happens, what's to stop the government from going to the dominant block producers and forcing them to impose limits on the kind of data a block can store? Then dragging them to court or enacting some other form of political retribution if they fail to do so.
- TarasBob 5y agoRead the whole post carefully. Your question is answered in it.