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He writes “don’t work” but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” The protocols “work” just fine. It’s making money that seems to require centralization,

He writes “don’t work” but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” The protocols “work” just fine. It’s making money that seems to require centralization, even by his own examples. And if the making-money part doesn’t happen, the commercialized/centralized service goes away. But guess what keeps running. The open federated protocols. I made this point in another thread. The point of openness and federation is not to prevent failure, but rather to facilitate continuity when central/commercial interests … lose interest. Besides. Try building Signal /without/ using IPv4, or HTTP, or email, or git. And then maybe /thank/ federated protocols for making this little blog post even possible.

deleted 5y ago
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mindslight 5y ago
Moxie jumped the shark when he started arguing for reliance on Google Play for better end-user security. He's just got a completely different threat model that focuses on getting users the first 90% by forgoing the last 10%. I personally am less concerned about drive by attackers (oh no, I might have to change my credit card number one additional time), and more concerned about APTs (advanced persistent threats) like Google.
baryphonic 5y ago
> Try building Signal /without/ using IPv4, or HTTP, or email, or git. And then maybe /thank/ federated protocols for making this little blog post even possible. Extremely underrated point. The problem is more a prisoner's dilemma w/r/t monetization than some intrinsic problem with federation.
jasode 5y ago
>but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” Signal is a non-profit entity.[1] E.g. Billionaire Brian Acton "donated" (aka 50-year loan at 0%) about $105 million to keep Signal running. If Signal has a monetizing agenda, they're going about it in a convoluted way. [1] https://twitter.com/chrisjbakke/status/1348319406028296192 https://twitter.com/chrisjbakke/status/1348319406028296192 EDIT to reply: >, and from what i've read, Signal does monetize. In precise terms, how exactly does Signal monetize? Every source I found says they're still running on donations: https://www.google.com/search?q=signal+technology+monetize+messenger https://www.google.com/search?q=signal+technology+monetize+m... It's worth calling this out specifically so I can evaluate gp (jmbwell) accusations of Marlinspike's motives to write the essay for commercial gain rather than outline the technical pros/cons of federation.
- tomxor 5y ago
  non-profit doesn't mean no money, and from what i've read, Signal does monetize.
- freeopinion 5y ago
  A donation and a loan are not the same thing. Even for a 0% loan. This means Signal has an obligation to come up with $105 million somehow. So, at the least, they can monetize $105 million worth, and still be a non-profit. More likely, they need to monetize $2 million/year for that loan, plus however many $million/year to pay salaries, etc. just to break even and be "non-profit." When you pay a single developer $200K/year + $20K/year health insurance + $5K/year food, it's pretty easy to be a non-profit even when you are trying to be high-profit.
ignoramous 5y ago
IPv4 (cloud), HTTP (cdn), and git (hosting) have all tended towards centralisation. Federation is but a mere impl detail.
- Hamcha 5y ago
  the centralized part will eventually fail, the federated will live on. You could have argued that RSS got centralized with Google Reader, but Google Reader died and RSS feeds are still alive.
  - hiq 5y ago
    > RSS feeds are still alive You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't think you'll convince many people with this.
tptacek 5y ago
The reason you're even making this argument is that the person who submitted this story altered the starting conditions of the thread by substituting an editorialized title for the author's own, and in that sense you're arguing not with Moxie Marlinspike, but with the submitter.
- Trombone12 5y ago
  The original title was a bland thing conveying naught but the thin idea that the world changes. A better objection is that the submitted title does not accurately reflect what is clearly Marlinspikes thesis statement: > "I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all" Personally I think the new titles stays pretty close to the thesis statement, but it might be a bit exaggerated as clearly Marlinspike doesn't mean "technically impossible" but rather something more like "socially unworkable".
  - tptacek 5y ago
    The corruption imposed by the false title is clear from the comment I responded to, which is premised on the idea that Moxie Marlinspike opposes all federated protocols (including, as the comment asserts, HTTP), when in fact his concern is with the project of deploying very specifically a secure messenger. It's not up to the submitter of an article on Hacker News to decide that an article's title "conveys naught", and then make up their own purportedly better title. Threads are sensitive to initial conditions, and submitters don't have a privilege to set those conditions. This is black-letter HN guidelines stuff; the title here is an abuse.
tablespoon 5y ago
> He writes “don’t work” but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” > The protocols “work” just fine. It’s making money that seems to require centralization, even by his own examples. Why would you say that? I skimmed it, and he wrote very little about money at all, and a lot about the stagnation that federated protocols experience, e.g.: > I thought about it. We got to the first production version of IP, and have been trying for the past 20 years to switch to a second production version of IP with limited success. We got to HTTP version 1.1 in 1997, and have been stuck there until now. Likewise, SMTP, IRC, DNS, XMPP, are all similarly frozen in time circa the late 1990s. To answer his question, that’s how far the internet got. It got to the late 90s. > That has taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. It's true: the federated protocol that is email doesn't actually have encryption, even though people have been talking about it for decades. The need to be interoperable with lowest common denominator means that even Phil Zimmerman finds it too troublesome to receive anything that's not unencrypted. A platform like WhatsApp added it in like a year or two. Federation seems like it more for an end state where things are stable and well-understood enough that it's tolerable that the implementations stagnate.
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mindslight 5y ago

Moxie jumped the shark when he started arguing for reliance on Google Play for better end-user security. He's just got a completely different threat model that focuses on getting users the first 90% by forgoing the last 10%. I personally am less concerned about drive by attackers (oh no, I might have to change my credit card number one additional time), and more concerned about APTs (advanced persistent threats) like Google.

baryphonic 5y ago

> Try building Signal /without/ using IPv4, or HTTP, or email, or git. And then maybe /thank/ federated protocols for making this little blog post even possible. Extremely underrated point. The problem is more a prisoner's dilemma w/r/t monetization than some intrinsic problem with federation.

jasode 5y ago

>but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” Signal is a non-profit entity.[1] E.g. Billionaire Brian Acton "donated" (aka 50-year loan at 0%) about $105 million to keep Signal running. If Signal has a monetizing agenda, they're going about it in a convoluted way. [1] https://twitter.com/chrisjbakke/status/1348319406028296192 https://twitter.com/chrisjbakke/status/1348319406028296192 EDIT to reply: >, and from what i've read, Signal does monetize. In precise terms, how exactly does Signal monetize? Every source I found says they're still running on donations: https://www.google.com/search?q=signal+technology+monetize+messenger https://www.google.com/search?q=signal+technology+monetize+m... It's worth calling this out specifically so I can evaluate gp (jmbwell) accusations of Marlinspike's motives to write the essay for commercial gain rather than outline the technical pros/cons of federation.

tomxor 5y ago
non-profit doesn't mean no money, and from what i've read, Signal does monetize.
freeopinion 5y ago
A donation and a loan are not the same thing. Even for a 0% loan. This means Signal has an obligation to come up with $105 million somehow. So, at the least, they can monetize $105 million worth, and still be a non-profit. More likely, they need to monetize $2 million/year for that loan, plus however many $million/year to pay salaries, etc. just to break even and be "non-profit." When you pay a single developer $200K/year + $20K/year health insurance + $5K/year food, it's pretty easy to be a non-profit even when you are trying to be high-profit.

ignoramous 5y ago

IPv4 (cloud), HTTP (cdn), and git (hosting) have all tended towards centralisation. Federation is but a mere impl detail.

Hamcha 5y ago
the centralized part will eventually fail, the federated will live on. You could have argued that RSS got centralized with Google Reader, but Google Reader died and RSS feeds are still alive.
- hiq 5y ago
  > RSS feeds are still alive You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't think you'll convince many people with this.

tptacek 5y ago

The reason you're even making this argument is that the person who submitted this story altered the starting conditions of the thread by substituting an editorialized title for the author's own, and in that sense you're arguing not with Moxie Marlinspike, but with the submitter.

Trombone12 5y ago
The original title was a bland thing conveying naught but the thin idea that the world changes. A better objection is that the submitted title does not accurately reflect what is clearly Marlinspikes thesis statement: > "I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all" Personally I think the new titles stays pretty close to the thesis statement, but it might be a bit exaggerated as clearly Marlinspike doesn't mean "technically impossible" but rather something more like "socially unworkable".
- tptacek 5y ago
  The corruption imposed by the false title is clear from the comment I responded to, which is premised on the idea that Moxie Marlinspike opposes all federated protocols (including, as the comment asserts, HTTP), when in fact his concern is with the project of deploying very specifically a secure messenger. It's not up to the submitter of an article on Hacker News to decide that an article's title "conveys naught", and then make up their own purportedly better title. Threads are sensitive to initial conditions, and submitters don't have a privilege to set those conditions. This is black-letter HN guidelines stuff; the title here is an abuse.

tablespoon 5y ago

> He writes “don’t work” but he seems to mean “aren’t easy to monetize.” > The protocols “work” just fine. It’s making money that seems to require centralization, even by his own examples. Why would you say that? I skimmed it, and he wrote very little about money at all, and a lot about the stagnation that federated protocols experience, e.g.: > I thought about it. We got to the first production version of IP, and have been trying for the past 20 years to switch to a second production version of IP with limited success. We got to HTTP version 1.1 in 1997, and have been stuck there until now. Likewise, SMTP, IRC, DNS, XMPP, are all similarly frozen in time circa the late 1990s. To answer his question, that’s how far the internet got. It got to the late 90s. > That has taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. It's true: the federated protocol that is email doesn't actually have encryption, even though people have been talking about it for decades. The need to be interoperable with lowest common denominator means that even Phil Zimmerman finds it too troublesome to receive anything that's not unencrypted. A platform like WhatsApp added it in like a year or two. Federation seems like it more for an end state where things are stable and well-understood enough that it's tolerable that the implementations stagnate.

deleted 5y ago

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