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It's funny that web3 is being sold as the decentralized web when that's what the internet architecture was literally designed for -- to survive an apocalyptic n

It's funny that web3 is being sold as the decentralized web when that's what the internet architecture was literally designed for -- to survive an apocalyptic nuclear war. However, big players used their ability to purchase infrastructure and unforeseen flaws in the protocols to centralize much of the activity on the web. Lol if you think money can't do that to any decentralized architecture. One thing that would at least help. We got the web fractured from a p2p two-way street into a broadcast medium because ISP's were able to use the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space to limit stable IPs to business class connections. I can't claim we can bring that back, but wide deployment of IPv6 would at least demolish the argument against consumer static IPs and open up the network as a fair flat graph again.

krapp 5y ago
They didn't do anything to the architecture. The fact that most people spend most of their time on a few websites doesn't centralize the architecture at all, or even the web, it only centralizes attention.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  I'm not claiming they did something to the architecture and it definitely doesn't solve the problem you identified. More that this flaw in the difference between userbase growth and the protocol made it very difficult to have the kind of vibrant consumer-to-consumer architectures that could have potentially competed. Nowadays, probably ddos and things like that are other barriers. However, I do think that IPv6 does at least remove a fundamental limiter even if that alone isn't enough.
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  DNS/root servers/ICANN are fundamental architecture of the internet that are centralized. People either forget, or weren’t around, when domains names were thought of and treated much like NFTs are today. There was a small group of early adopters but for the most part big business considered websites/domain names something akin to digital monopoly money, just a play thing with no relation to the real world. In the early days even the law and courts didn’t know how to treat claims over domain names. Now ICANN dictates DNS rules worldwide and streamlines the process for businesses to take domains according to ICANN rules. There are many examples of new decentralized architecture and protocols being built for web3 and the decentralized web, like: IPFS: a p2p alternative to https ENS: a decentralized domain name protocol as a alternative to DNS
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    DNS fulfills a direct consumer need -- to more easily access a website. I'm hard pressed to say what a claim on a JPEG fulfills. Sounds like it makes the world harder to navigate for consumers, like a tollbooth on a public park.
    - throwawaycities 5y ago
      I didn’t say DNS didn’t fulfill a need, it just does so in a centralized way that is now antiquated by newer technology that removes the need for ICANN to act as the centralized authority. Also an NFT is token standard, sure it can be used as a fungible record of ownership, but your framing as if all NFTs are is a “claim on a JPEG” shows either a lack of understanding or a common Luddite attitude toward the technology. My NFTs work perfectly fine as domain names, far from a JPEG.
arnaudsm 5y ago
I 100% agree. Imagine if self-hosting was taught in schools. Would Facebook and GMail be this big? I'm dreaming of an alternate universe where you read your friends microblogs through RSS, with the client and timeline algorithm of your choice. Everyone has his own mail server, with proper open-source spam filters. Open-source is a public service, receiving donations from governments. We were so close to this.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  The spam problem is still pretty tricky, but this would be a good step. Owning the means of communication gives a lot of power to natural persons over corporate persons. Removing dealing with NAT and complications like that makes things a lot simpler even if it's not the be all and end all.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I’m sure they would be. You ship your org chart, so large organizations that move quickly will ship bulky applications. It’s very hard to make those applications smaller without slowing development considerably. Moreover, it’s not like there was a dearth of system administration experience at Google around the time GMail was conceived.
  - aftbit 5y ago
    I read the GP's "big" as popular, not bloated.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Ah, I hadn’t considered this possibility. Thanks for pointing it out.
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  You are dreaming about “trust everybody” universe, which ceased to exist long time ago. This is still possible in an isolated bubble, but our society is closer to “trust nobody” at this moment, so regardless of the technology used your dream is just a dream. We were close to it only for a brief period of time, when the bubble was small and society within it relatively homogenous.
cobookman 5y ago
The web is fairly decentralized though. Google could go down and the web would still operate. Amazon could go down, and the web would still operate. Yes there's a few centralized components still such-as DNS, but even that is heavily cached and distributed in nature. Blockchain could aid in replacing BGP & DNS allowing for a better web. But web3 is just as centralized as our current web, if not more centralized. For example, abracadabra money get's current crypto prices from a "price oracle" which is a consortium of 16 parties who state what they feel the price should be. I wouldn't call that "Decentralized"
- iratewizard 5y ago
  Aws and cloudflare outages have taken down a significant portion of the web. No, the web isn't 100% centralized, but what percent is centralized to a small handful of players?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    That doesn't mean the web isn't decentralized, that means people have gravitated towards a single vendor for reasons I won't get into.
    - throwawaycities 5y ago
      But whatever vendor you choose is a centralized vendor. Unless your using an IP address for you website, your domain name is registered through a centralized registrar. The DNS architecture/protocol itself is centralized as it is controlled by ICANN.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        There's nothing stopping you from hosting a functional website from an IP address.
        throwawaycities 5y ago
emptybottle 5y ago
It’s interesting too because web3 repurposes existing internet and compute resources to build a more sophisticated network, similar to how phone networks were repurposed back in the early internet for connectivity.
foobarbecue 5y ago
So true. IP address should have been like phone numbers. The public should have known what they were and how to use them for 2-way communications. I tell non-technical people about this all the time and get blank stares. It didn't occur to me that IPv6 could fix it. I sure hope you're right about that -- what a glorious day it would be if everyone gained control of their computers' networking abilities.
- tlrobinson 5y ago
  IP addresses shouldn’t be portable, that would be a disaster for routing table sizes. It’s a bit like saying your street address should be portable. On the contrary, addresses and phone numbers should be like domain names. It sure would be great if I could just update my mailing/physical address once when I move.
  - necovek 5y ago
    Well, PO boxes are a rough equivalent to domains: you've got to explicitely set it up at some cost. As long as you only ever give out your PObox address (domain) instead of your real address (IP), you are good.
  - foobarbecue 5y ago
    When I said "phone number," I wasn't implying any portability. I was actually thinking of a land-line phone number. The point I was making is that it's assumed you can get a static phone number for your house, but most of the public don't know how to get a static IP address for their house (and it's often not even possible to do, depending on ISP).
RedShift1 5y ago
IPv6 deployment removing the not giving consumers static IPs argument is a pipe dream. Many ISP's that deploy IPv6 don't guarantee you'll get the same prefix and in many cases you don't whenever your CPE loses connection even for just an instant. There is zero economic incentive for them to do that so why would they.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Yea I agree with the social aspect of it, but social aspects can be made to bend and break a physical limitation is impossible.
manigandham 5y ago
That's not what web3 refers to. The new decentralization means: 1) backend running as code on a blockchain spread across the nodes instead of a single provider 2) user accounts are nothing more than a wallet address and completely controlled by the end user 3) transactions and ownership of tokens between addresses are controlled by users without any middleman control, approval, or censorship. Web3 still runs on all the same internet architecture as the rest of the web. It's still TCP/IP underneath, and browsers with JS providing frontends.
- samtheprogram 5y ago
  Yes. Watch that become centralized. If it goes mainstream, it will happen.
Aeolun 5y ago
The ‘web’ is still just as decentralized as before. Provided you keep a list of hostnames/ips you want to connect to, and a continent is wiped off the map, it’ll neatly route the traffic through the remaining nodes. Anyone that actively wants to can fairly easily obtain a stable IPv4 IP, or even IPv6, it’s not that it isn’t available, it’s that nobody uses it. I’m sure my home connection has a stable IPv6 address, but I honestly wouldn’t be able to notice from the name whether it had changed or not, too many friggin characters.

krapp 5y ago

They didn't do anything to the architecture. The fact that most people spend most of their time on a few websites doesn't centralize the architecture at all, or even the web, it only centralizes attention.

tehjoker 5y ago
I'm not claiming they did something to the architecture and it definitely doesn't solve the problem you identified. More that this flaw in the difference between userbase growth and the protocol made it very difficult to have the kind of vibrant consumer-to-consumer architectures that could have potentially competed. Nowadays, probably ddos and things like that are other barriers. However, I do think that IPv6 does at least remove a fundamental limiter even if that alone isn't enough.
throwawaycities 5y ago
DNS/root servers/ICANN are fundamental architecture of the internet that are centralized. People either forget, or weren’t around, when domains names were thought of and treated much like NFTs are today. There was a small group of early adopters but for the most part big business considered websites/domain names something akin to digital monopoly money, just a play thing with no relation to the real world. In the early days even the law and courts didn’t know how to treat claims over domain names. Now ICANN dictates DNS rules worldwide and streamlines the process for businesses to take domains according to ICANN rules. There are many examples of new decentralized architecture and protocols being built for web3 and the decentralized web, like: IPFS: a p2p alternative to https ENS: a decentralized domain name protocol as a alternative to DNS
- tehjoker 5y ago
  DNS fulfills a direct consumer need -- to more easily access a website. I'm hard pressed to say what a claim on a JPEG fulfills. Sounds like it makes the world harder to navigate for consumers, like a tollbooth on a public park.
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    I didn’t say DNS didn’t fulfill a need, it just does so in a centralized way that is now antiquated by newer technology that removes the need for ICANN to act as the centralized authority. Also an NFT is token standard, sure it can be used as a fungible record of ownership, but your framing as if all NFTs are is a “claim on a JPEG” shows either a lack of understanding or a common Luddite attitude toward the technology. My NFTs work perfectly fine as domain names, far from a JPEG.

arnaudsm 5y ago

I 100% agree. Imagine if self-hosting was taught in schools. Would Facebook and GMail be this big? I'm dreaming of an alternate universe where you read your friends microblogs through RSS, with the client and timeline algorithm of your choice. Everyone has his own mail server, with proper open-source spam filters. Open-source is a public service, receiving donations from governments. We were so close to this.

tehjoker 5y ago
The spam problem is still pretty tricky, but this would be a good step. Owning the means of communication gives a lot of power to natural persons over corporate persons. Removing dealing with NAT and complications like that makes things a lot simpler even if it's not the be all and end all.
throwaway894345 5y ago
I’m sure they would be. You ship your org chart, so large organizations that move quickly will ship bulky applications. It’s very hard to make those applications smaller without slowing development considerably. Moreover, it’s not like there was a dearth of system administration experience at Google around the time GMail was conceived.
- aftbit 5y ago
  I read the GP's "big" as popular, not bloated.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Ah, I hadn’t considered this possibility. Thanks for pointing it out.
ivan_gammel 5y ago
You are dreaming about “trust everybody” universe, which ceased to exist long time ago. This is still possible in an isolated bubble, but our society is closer to “trust nobody” at this moment, so regardless of the technology used your dream is just a dream. We were close to it only for a brief period of time, when the bubble was small and society within it relatively homogenous.

cobookman 5y ago

The web is fairly decentralized though. Google could go down and the web would still operate. Amazon could go down, and the web would still operate. Yes there's a few centralized components still such-as DNS, but even that is heavily cached and distributed in nature. Blockchain could aid in replacing BGP & DNS allowing for a better web. But web3 is just as centralized as our current web, if not more centralized. For example, abracadabra money get's current crypto prices from a "price oracle" which is a consortium of 16 parties who state what they feel the price should be. I wouldn't call that "Decentralized"

iratewizard 5y ago
Aws and cloudflare outages have taken down a significant portion of the web. No, the web isn't 100% centralized, but what percent is centralized to a small handful of players?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  That doesn't mean the web isn't decentralized, that means people have gravitated towards a single vendor for reasons I won't get into.
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    But whatever vendor you choose is a centralized vendor. Unless your using an IP address for you website, your domain name is registered through a centralized registrar. The DNS architecture/protocol itself is centralized as it is controlled by ICANN.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      There's nothing stopping you from hosting a functional website from an IP address.
      - throwawaycities 5y ago

emptybottle 5y ago

It’s interesting too because web3 repurposes existing internet and compute resources to build a more sophisticated network, similar to how phone networks were repurposed back in the early internet for connectivity.

foobarbecue 5y ago

So true. IP address should have been like phone numbers. The public should have known what they were and how to use them for 2-way communications. I tell non-technical people about this all the time and get blank stares. It didn't occur to me that IPv6 could fix it. I sure hope you're right about that -- what a glorious day it would be if everyone gained control of their computers' networking abilities.

tlrobinson 5y ago
IP addresses shouldn’t be portable, that would be a disaster for routing table sizes. It’s a bit like saying your street address should be portable. On the contrary, addresses and phone numbers should be like domain names. It sure would be great if I could just update my mailing/physical address once when I move.
- necovek 5y ago
  Well, PO boxes are a rough equivalent to domains: you've got to explicitely set it up at some cost. As long as you only ever give out your PObox address (domain) instead of your real address (IP), you are good.
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  When I said "phone number," I wasn't implying any portability. I was actually thinking of a land-line phone number. The point I was making is that it's assumed you can get a static phone number for your house, but most of the public don't know how to get a static IP address for their house (and it's often not even possible to do, depending on ISP).

RedShift1 5y ago

IPv6 deployment removing the not giving consumers static IPs argument is a pipe dream. Many ISP's that deploy IPv6 don't guarantee you'll get the same prefix and in many cases you don't whenever your CPE loses connection even for just an instant. There is zero economic incentive for them to do that so why would they.

tehjoker 5y ago
Yea I agree with the social aspect of it, but social aspects can be made to bend and break a physical limitation is impossible.

manigandham 5y ago

That's not what web3 refers to. The new decentralization means: 1) backend running as code on a blockchain spread across the nodes instead of a single provider 2) user accounts are nothing more than a wallet address and completely controlled by the end user 3) transactions and ownership of tokens between addresses are controlled by users without any middleman control, approval, or censorship. Web3 still runs on all the same internet architecture as the rest of the web. It's still TCP/IP underneath, and browsers with JS providing frontends.

samtheprogram 5y ago
Yes. Watch that become centralized. If it goes mainstream, it will happen.

Aeolun 5y ago

The ‘web’ is still just as decentralized as before. Provided you keep a list of hostnames/ips you want to connect to, and a continent is wiped off the map, it’ll neatly route the traffic through the remaining nodes. Anyone that actively wants to can fairly easily obtain a stable IPv4 IP, or even IPv6, it’s not that it isn’t available, it’s that nobody uses it. I’m sure my home connection has a stable IPv6 address, but I honestly wouldn’t be able to notice from the name whether it had changed or not, too many friggin characters.