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This. The sad thing is that people like the convenience of centralized systems. Humans are lazy. They'll go with the #1 option, even if it means building a cen

by neelc 5y ago

This. The sad thing is that people like the convenience of centralized systems. Humans are lazy. They'll go with the #1 option, even if it means building a centralized monopoly. I should've made this point clearer. Note: I am the article's author.

alexb_ 5y ago
Even then, I think blaming it on laziness is really not a good idea. People are not lazy for not understanding how systems work - not every single person has time for that, or cares about decentralization. Laziness implies it's a problem, and programmers have an unhealthy fascination with seeing problems and thinking they can all be fixed somehow if they just technology hard enough. You have to look at the individual decisions that people make, and actually make it worth someone's time to do something themselves. For some people, they care a lot about decentralization, are anti-corporate, etc., but most people don't care. They see that they could either spend money on a cheap PC and 10 hours learning about, setting up, and troubleshooting their own mail server; or they can get a gmail account in 2 minutes and get the exact same practical result. The same will apply to web3 systems. It's not laziness, it's people making rational decisions.
- the_snooze 5y ago
  >programmers have an unhealthy fascination with seeing problems and thinking they can all be fixed somehow if they just technology hard enough. This. It's not up to techies to decide what people value. The philosophical problem with web3/blockchain/whatever is that it assumes "decentralization" is a valuable thing in and of itself, without really tying it into what people actually value.
shadowgovt 5y ago
It's almost as if trust turns out to be some kind of dominant strategy.
- MrMan 5y ago
  thank you
bluehorseray 5y ago
I don't think it's necessarily sad at all. It seems like centralized systems make the most sense in, well, most systems. And safeguards can be put in place to prevent the centralization from being abused.
oivey 5y ago
I think people have some big misunderstandings about power. You’re right, centralized systems can lead to monopolies. On the other hand, decentralized systems where no one has absolute power can make important changes difficult to implement. See: changes to Bitcoin and Ethereum’s protocols to address issues with mining.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Why is this sad? We live in a world of Ikea furniture and cabinetry, of fast food and passionate gourmet, there's room in the world for the convenient and the passionate tinkerers. Everyone is different and likes to allocate their time in different places. My partner will not put a sticker on her laptop that she hasn't designed and drawn herself, while I type on a handmade desk. That there are easy and hard ways to do things is fantastic; it means I can pick the lazy choice for things I don't care for and the passionate things for those I do. Do you really want a world where everyone cares about the same things you do? I feel the world is better for its diversity.
usrbinbash 5y ago
> Humans are lazy. They'll go with the #1 option, even if it means building a centralized monopoly. Am I lazy because I don't forge spare parts for my car and install them myself? No. I leave this to the huge, rich, established company that manufactured my car, and their contractors. Why? Because the only times I ever repaired anything in a car, was in videogames. And I want to be sure that the thing that I entrust my safety to while traveling, is in excellent working order. For the same reason, most people don't setup their own mail servers, don't setup their own racks to run webapps, invent their own currencies, grow their own food, produce their own electricity, or dig wells. Our society runs on a huge variety of systems, most of which are too complex individually for any single human to fully understand/make/maintain on his own. Centralization is not a bad thing to be avoided, it's an inevitable consequence of technological development.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  This example is silly - it's actually impossible for you to forge spare parts for your car, as most of them require multi-million dollar machines to manufacture, the information on how they are made, blueprints or schematics are not avaliable to you. And even if you succeed, someof them are IP protected so this is a terrible analogie.
  - usrbinbash 5y ago
    I can give you plenty of more feasible analogies; Do I make my own bread? Sure, sometimes I do. Baking bread isn't that hard. But do I do it every day? No. Why? Because it takes time to do, my kitchen counter is usually a mess afterwards, and the result usually doesn't taste anywhere near as good as the 20+ bread varieties I can buy at the corner store. I sometimes do it for fun, but I wouldn't do it every day. Let's go to macro scale: What's the better solution: 1000000 people each baking their own bread (1 loaf a day), or a giant company baking all the bread? A million stoves are most certainly less energy efficient than the professional industrial ones at the company. Having to divide the resources into many small packages and distributing them to each individual households is less efficient. The quality of the bread will vary widely. And lets say baking takes 0.5 hours, that's 57 person years wasted per day to do something the bread factory can probably do with a few dozen employees.
UncleMeat 5y ago
This isn't laziness. This is different priorities. Few people think that decentralized systems are an important thing in and of themselves. Laziness would be believing the decentralization is good without working to achieve it.
MrMan 5y ago
this statement is embarrassing. specialization and division of labor is not due to "laziness"
vanveenada 5y ago
Do you knit? Do you wear sweaters? The sweaters you have -- did you knit them? Do you wear shirts? Did you sew them yourself? If not, why are you so lazy?

by neelc 5y ago

alexb_ 5y ago

Even then, I think blaming it on laziness is really not a good idea. People are not lazy for not understanding how systems work - not every single person has time for that, or cares about decentralization. Laziness implies it's a problem, and programmers have an unhealthy fascination with seeing problems and thinking they can all be fixed somehow if they just technology hard enough. You have to look at the individual decisions that people make, and actually make it worth someone's time to do something themselves. For some people, they care a lot about decentralization, are anti-corporate, etc., but most people don't care. They see that they could either spend money on a cheap PC and 10 hours learning about, setting up, and troubleshooting their own mail server; or they can get a gmail account in 2 minutes and get the exact same practical result. The same will apply to web3 systems. It's not laziness, it's people making rational decisions.

the_snooze 5y ago
>programmers have an unhealthy fascination with seeing problems and thinking they can all be fixed somehow if they just technology hard enough. This. It's not up to techies to decide what people value. The philosophical problem with web3/blockchain/whatever is that it assumes "decentralization" is a valuable thing in and of itself, without really tying it into what people actually value.

shadowgovt 5y ago

It's almost as if trust turns out to be some kind of dominant strategy.

MrMan 5y ago
thank you

bluehorseray 5y ago

I don't think it's necessarily sad at all. It seems like centralized systems make the most sense in, well, most systems. And safeguards can be put in place to prevent the centralization from being abused.

oivey 5y ago

I think people have some big misunderstandings about power. You’re right, centralized systems can lead to monopolies. On the other hand, decentralized systems where no one has absolute power can make important changes difficult to implement. See: changes to Bitcoin and Ethereum’s protocols to address issues with mining.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

Why is this sad? We live in a world of Ikea furniture and cabinetry, of fast food and passionate gourmet, there's room in the world for the convenient and the passionate tinkerers. Everyone is different and likes to allocate their time in different places. My partner will not put a sticker on her laptop that she hasn't designed and drawn herself, while I type on a handmade desk. That there are easy and hard ways to do things is fantastic; it means I can pick the lazy choice for things I don't care for and the passionate things for those I do. Do you really want a world where everyone cares about the same things you do? I feel the world is better for its diversity.

usrbinbash 5y ago

> Humans are lazy. They'll go with the #1 option, even if it means building a centralized monopoly. Am I lazy because I don't forge spare parts for my car and install them myself? No. I leave this to the huge, rich, established company that manufactured my car, and their contractors. Why? Because the only times I ever repaired anything in a car, was in videogames. And I want to be sure that the thing that I entrust my safety to while traveling, is in excellent working order. For the same reason, most people don't setup their own mail servers, don't setup their own racks to run webapps, invent their own currencies, grow their own food, produce their own electricity, or dig wells. Our society runs on a huge variety of systems, most of which are too complex individually for any single human to fully understand/make/maintain on his own. Centralization is not a bad thing to be avoided, it's an inevitable consequence of technological development.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
This example is silly - it's actually impossible for you to forge spare parts for your car, as most of them require multi-million dollar machines to manufacture, the information on how they are made, blueprints or schematics are not avaliable to you. And even if you succeed, someof them are IP protected so this is a terrible analogie.
- usrbinbash 5y ago
  I can give you plenty of more feasible analogies; Do I make my own bread? Sure, sometimes I do. Baking bread isn't that hard. But do I do it every day? No. Why? Because it takes time to do, my kitchen counter is usually a mess afterwards, and the result usually doesn't taste anywhere near as good as the 20+ bread varieties I can buy at the corner store. I sometimes do it for fun, but I wouldn't do it every day. Let's go to macro scale: What's the better solution: 1000000 people each baking their own bread (1 loaf a day), or a giant company baking all the bread? A million stoves are most certainly less energy efficient than the professional industrial ones at the company. Having to divide the resources into many small packages and distributing them to each individual households is less efficient. The quality of the bread will vary widely. And lets say baking takes 0.5 hours, that's 57 person years wasted per day to do something the bread factory can probably do with a few dozen employees.

UncleMeat 5y ago

This isn't laziness. This is different priorities. Few people think that decentralized systems are an important thing in and of themselves. Laziness would be believing the decentralization is good without working to achieve it.

MrMan 5y ago

this statement is embarrassing. specialization and division of labor is not due to "laziness"

vanveenada 5y ago

Do you knit? Do you wear sweaters? The sweaters you have -- did you knit them? Do you wear shirts? Did you sew them yourself? If not, why are you so lazy?