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Why would we ever move toward decentralization? It is almost always easier to have at least some central point of control in any distributed system, even the I

Why would we ever move toward decentralization? It is almost always easier to have at least some central point of control in any distributed system, even the Internet (IANA, RIRs, etc.). It is also very difficult to remove a centralized control point after a system is already deployed, especially if the system supports heterogenous clients (as it is likely that some clients will be slow to switch to the new design, and many will make bad assumptions about the system architecture).

baby 5y ago
decentralization in the blockchain world is really to provide security and interoperability by emulating centralized services. So essentially it looks like a centralized service, but it's more secure than a centralized service.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  From a cryptographic perspective, centralized and decentralised services are equally secure. From a user perspective, blockchains are less secure as there is no authority you can approach for chargebacks The point of blockchain was removing trust from a single person and spreading it around over a network
  - baby 5y ago
    > From a cryptographic perspective, centralized and decentralised services are equally secure That’s just not true
  - _heimdall 5y ago
    > From a user perspective, blockchains are less secure as there is no authority you can approach for chargebacks This actually proves the point that security is relative. There are instances when I would feel more secure when an outside party can refund my money, say when the seller never ships the product I ordered. There are also times when I would feel less secure with chargebacks, like when I sell something on eBay and the buyer files a complaint with PayPal after taking delivery of exactly what they ordered. Security wasn't an original goal of bitcoin. Privacy, anonymity, and immutability were, though the first to were lost a decade ago and immutibly is pretty well solved but also the primary cause for so much wasted resource consumption.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      > There are instances when I would feel more secure Your comparative examples make no sense - you like refunds as a customer and hate refunds as a vendor. Surprise, surprise…? I mean this is already the case in web2/fiat.
      - _heimdall 5y ago
        It sounds like you did understand my two examples, not sure how they could have made no sense. The two scenarios point to competing ideas of what "secure" would mean, and my point was that security can't be a goal because its relative
        shaklee3 5y ago
        can you explain how web3 solves your issue?
        _heimdall 5y ago
        Oh it doesn't, I haven't found any value in web3 yet. I may just be missing something, but I still don't get what problem web3 can solve that isn't solved easier with web1 or web2 technologies.
distrill 5y ago
> Why would we ever move toward decentralization? for all of the reasons that web3 apologists are excited about decentralization. I'm not really one of them, so I'm not going to advocate on their behalf, but lots of people are very excited about this. > It is almost always easier to have at least some central point of control I don't think anyone is going to argue that decentralization is the easiest solution. I agree that it's hard to remove this point of centralization once it's there. My guess would be that, if this goes the way many are hoping, new places emerge over time with increasing levels of independence from these central providers.
spiddy 5y ago
There is a point to be made here that is an important difference between web2 and web3+centralized apis. On the latter companies do not have lock-in of the data, which provides a big incentive to not be evil. the moment someone can make a case for bad play they have the advantage to shift the market to a different platform. Unfortunately this is not so easy on web2 because of the data that locks users on those platforms.
- robbiep 5y ago
  This is probably the best argument I have seen in favour of web3
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > the moment someone can make a case for bad play they have the advantage to shift the market to a different platform. As we have clearly seen with OpenSea and rampant fakes, copies, plagiarism etc. Oh wait...
- manmal 5y ago
  I don't think making all data public is the best solution for preventing companies from selling my data, or withholding it from me.
- acdha 5y ago
  > There is a point to be made here that is an important difference between web2 and web3+centralized apis. On the latter companies do not have lock-in of the data This is only true of the data stored on the blockchain itself. As described in the article, that isn’t anywhere near enough to replace the centralized systems being billed as “web3”, and it’s completely unworkable for data which can’t be public, which is updated frequently, or which needs to be deleted. Combined with blockchains being unavoidably quite expensive and slow, and the challenges of standardizing protocols while the competition is shipping it seems quite unlikely that this will change. It doesn’t reduce lock-in meaningfully if Google were to continue to store and process all of your data but now you’re using an outside authentication system. I’m sure they would love, however, the way “web3” makes their job of tracking users so much easier.
scrubs 5y ago
This discussion would benefit from a Ramsey, graph, random matrix person to expound on "random" graphs as seen in nature. Nodes with n edges in, 1 out are around but not without some centralization. Surely not robust?

baby 5y ago

decentralization in the blockchain world is really to provide security and interoperability by emulating centralized services. So essentially it looks like a centralized service, but it's more secure than a centralized service.

cuteboy19 5y ago
From a cryptographic perspective, centralized and decentralised services are equally secure. From a user perspective, blockchains are less secure as there is no authority you can approach for chargebacks The point of blockchain was removing trust from a single person and spreading it around over a network
- baby 5y ago
  > From a cryptographic perspective, centralized and decentralised services are equally secure That’s just not true
- _heimdall 5y ago
  > From a user perspective, blockchains are less secure as there is no authority you can approach for chargebacks This actually proves the point that security is relative. There are instances when I would feel more secure when an outside party can refund my money, say when the seller never ships the product I ordered. There are also times when I would feel less secure with chargebacks, like when I sell something on eBay and the buyer files a complaint with PayPal after taking delivery of exactly what they ordered. Security wasn't an original goal of bitcoin. Privacy, anonymity, and immutability were, though the first to were lost a decade ago and immutibly is pretty well solved but also the primary cause for so much wasted resource consumption.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    > There are instances when I would feel more secure Your comparative examples make no sense - you like refunds as a customer and hate refunds as a vendor. Surprise, surprise…? I mean this is already the case in web2/fiat.
    - _heimdall 5y ago
      It sounds like you did understand my two examples, not sure how they could have made no sense. The two scenarios point to competing ideas of what "secure" would mean, and my point was that security can't be a goal because its relative
      - shaklee3 5y ago
        can you explain how web3 solves your issue?
        _heimdall 5y ago
        Oh it doesn't, I haven't found any value in web3 yet. I may just be missing something, but I still don't get what problem web3 can solve that isn't solved easier with web1 or web2 technologies.

distrill 5y ago

> Why would we ever move toward decentralization? for all of the reasons that web3 apologists are excited about decentralization. I'm not really one of them, so I'm not going to advocate on their behalf, but lots of people are very excited about this. > It is almost always easier to have at least some central point of control I don't think anyone is going to argue that decentralization is the easiest solution. I agree that it's hard to remove this point of centralization once it's there. My guess would be that, if this goes the way many are hoping, new places emerge over time with increasing levels of independence from these central providers.

spiddy 5y ago

There is a point to be made here that is an important difference between web2 and web3+centralized apis. On the latter companies do not have lock-in of the data, which provides a big incentive to not be evil. the moment someone can make a case for bad play they have the advantage to shift the market to a different platform. Unfortunately this is not so easy on web2 because of the data that locks users on those platforms.

robbiep 5y ago
This is probably the best argument I have seen in favour of web3
dmitriid 5y ago
> the moment someone can make a case for bad play they have the advantage to shift the market to a different platform. As we have clearly seen with OpenSea and rampant fakes, copies, plagiarism etc. Oh wait...
manmal 5y ago
I don't think making all data public is the best solution for preventing companies from selling my data, or withholding it from me.
acdha 5y ago
> There is a point to be made here that is an important difference between web2 and web3+centralized apis. On the latter companies do not have lock-in of the data This is only true of the data stored on the blockchain itself. As described in the article, that isn’t anywhere near enough to replace the centralized systems being billed as “web3”, and it’s completely unworkable for data which can’t be public, which is updated frequently, or which needs to be deleted. Combined with blockchains being unavoidably quite expensive and slow, and the challenges of standardizing protocols while the competition is shipping it seems quite unlikely that this will change. It doesn’t reduce lock-in meaningfully if Google were to continue to store and process all of your data but now you’re using an outside authentication system. I’m sure they would love, however, the way “web3” makes their job of tracking users so much easier.

scrubs 5y ago

This discussion would benefit from a Ramsey, graph, random matrix person to expound on "random" graphs as seen in nature. Nodes with n edges in, 1 out are around but not without some centralization. Surely not robust?