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The problems you’re describing are problems of the internet, not decentralization. Few could’ve predicted what the initial rules of the internet would generate

The problems you’re describing are problems of the internet, not decentralization. Few could’ve predicted what the initial rules of the internet would generate after a few decades. We can learn from the outcome and come up with new rules. The point about how “people want centralized systems” reminds me of the initial response to Apple’s privacy strategy. At the time, it was met with skepticism, to say the least. Privacy wasn’t something that normal people obsessed over, and it came at the expense of wonderful features that were only possible through centralized archival of personal information. Since then, a steady drumbeat of surveillance scandals, security incidents, and technological innovations have turned data retention into more of a liability than an asset.

polyomino 5y ago
Yeah, and Apple sold people on "privacy" and now operate a surveillance network against Chinese citizens. They are the archetypical example of this playing out. Promising decentralization and instead you get metamask overriding the blockchain because some jpegs are illegal.
- Siira 5y ago
  Isn’t Metamask opensource? Why don’t people maintain a fork without the censorship?
majormajor 5y ago
Apple suggested that people would care about privacy, and there was skepticism. Of course, privacy had been the status quo in an earlier era of the internet, and the lack of privacy didn't enable much in terms of novel user experience (turns out all the crap about "people would rather have personalized ads" was crap). Now a crowd of people are suggesting something very different: that people wouldn't care about giving up the conveniences of today's centralized systems. But we do have experience with a less centralized web, and it wasn't a lack of "web3" tech that resulted in the centralized systems gaining their current position. It was open competition with the less-centralized old status quo. The centralized systems that won are very different than the older centralized systems that had lost - AOL tried to force everything inside of its wall; Facebook and Twitter merely extend their reach so that they can touch everything, and won out as aggregators vs doing in-house content production. So why would the desire to have such convenient, one-stop-shop, minimal-setup centralized aggregator services go away?
- danaris 5y ago
  But it wasn't just "open competition." Many actions of the centralized de-facto internet monopolies of today (Facebook, Google, etc) were—and continue to be—horribly anticompetitive. Furthermore, just like in the offline world, "open competition" doesn't consider externalities, like the loss of privacy, and the massive social and political influence that these behemoths have gained.
alexb_ 5y ago
The initial "rules" of the internet did not come from any legislation. They were not forced into existence, because the internet is a decentralized system. It's rational people finding out that trusted systems actually do work for most cases, and they work SIGNIFICANTLY better and with less problems than decentralized systems. So eventually, everyone used centralized systems because that was the rational thing to do, and it reached a critical mass where you assume anyone who is not part of the establish trusted system is malicious (which is true, 99% of the time). >surveillance scandals, security incidents, and technological innovations have turned data retention into more of a liability than an asset LOL! I actually cannot believe that you seriously think this. Yes, Apple is very big on privacy. It is not the reason that people buy Apple products outside of a very small portion of users. And data retention, collection, tracking, etc. is such a gigantic business and is so central to the very function of tech giants that you are actually completely deluded if you think that "data collection is a liability". Almost nobody cares about their data. They are happy to give it up for free in exchange for being able to use websites and services. And why wouldn't they? I don't care how much you think that you are private, how much you think you've bested the giant tech companies with entire teams of the smartest engineers on the planet figuring out how to optimally harvest more data, how much you think you've been able to seclude yourself from the 99% of rational people. You have lost. You have no privacy, period. Privacy as a concept has been dead for years, so the only people who even value it anymore are people like you who think they can somehow best this system.
eternityforest 5y ago
I suspect a lot of that is driven by a small number of privacy advocates, and I really don't like the extremism. There are people who, if they had their way, would probably ban or highly regulate CCTV cameras. And somehow, after all these years, right to encrypt and right to use anonymity routing is still under attack at times. The previous approach to internet privacy assumed it was a public place. The current assumptions are totally unprecedented, they are basically trying to make every interaction not only private but as confidential as a therapists office. And, even beyond that, they want to eliminate things that even possibly could be used to violate privacy, removing features rather than allowing opt-in, only allowing a weak revokable consent to data processing, etc. I would much rather they apply a targeted approach of ensuring privacy is always available to those who want it, without trying to eliminate public digital spaces as a category.

polyomino 5y ago

Yeah, and Apple sold people on "privacy" and now operate a surveillance network against Chinese citizens. They are the archetypical example of this playing out. Promising decentralization and instead you get metamask overriding the blockchain because some jpegs are illegal.

Siira 5y ago
Isn’t Metamask opensource? Why don’t people maintain a fork without the censorship?

majormajor 5y ago

Apple suggested that people would care about privacy, and there was skepticism. Of course, privacy had been the status quo in an earlier era of the internet, and the lack of privacy didn't enable much in terms of novel user experience (turns out all the crap about "people would rather have personalized ads" was crap). Now a crowd of people are suggesting something very different: that people wouldn't care about giving up the conveniences of today's centralized systems. But we do have experience with a less centralized web, and it wasn't a lack of "web3" tech that resulted in the centralized systems gaining their current position. It was open competition with the less-centralized old status quo. The centralized systems that won are very different than the older centralized systems that had lost - AOL tried to force everything inside of its wall; Facebook and Twitter merely extend their reach so that they can touch everything, and won out as aggregators vs doing in-house content production. So why would the desire to have such convenient, one-stop-shop, minimal-setup centralized aggregator services go away?

danaris 5y ago
But it wasn't just "open competition." Many actions of the centralized de-facto internet monopolies of today (Facebook, Google, etc) were—and continue to be—horribly anticompetitive. Furthermore, just like in the offline world, "open competition" doesn't consider externalities, like the loss of privacy, and the massive social and political influence that these behemoths have gained.

alexb_ 5y ago

The initial "rules" of the internet did not come from any legislation. They were not forced into existence, because the internet is a decentralized system. It's rational people finding out that trusted systems actually do work for most cases, and they work SIGNIFICANTLY better and with less problems than decentralized systems. So eventually, everyone used centralized systems because that was the rational thing to do, and it reached a critical mass where you assume anyone who is not part of the establish trusted system is malicious (which is true, 99% of the time). >surveillance scandals, security incidents, and technological innovations have turned data retention into more of a liability than an asset LOL! I actually cannot believe that you seriously think this. Yes, Apple is very big on privacy. It is not the reason that people buy Apple products outside of a very small portion of users. And data retention, collection, tracking, etc. is such a gigantic business and is so central to the very function of tech giants that you are actually completely deluded if you think that "data collection is a liability". Almost nobody cares about their data. They are happy to give it up for free in exchange for being able to use websites and services. And why wouldn't they? I don't care how much you think that you are private, how much you think you've bested the giant tech companies with entire teams of the smartest engineers on the planet figuring out how to optimally harvest more data, how much you think you've been able to seclude yourself from the 99% of rational people. You have lost. You have no privacy, period. Privacy as a concept has been dead for years, so the only people who even value it anymore are people like you who think they can somehow best this system.

eternityforest 5y ago

I suspect a lot of that is driven by a small number of privacy advocates, and I really don't like the extremism. There are people who, if they had their way, would probably ban or highly regulate CCTV cameras. And somehow, after all these years, right to encrypt and right to use anonymity routing is still under attack at times. The previous approach to internet privacy assumed it was a public place. The current assumptions are totally unprecedented, they are basically trying to make every interaction not only private but as confidential as a therapists office. And, even beyond that, they want to eliminate things that even possibly could be used to violate privacy, removing features rather than allowing opt-in, only allowing a weak revokable consent to data processing, etc. I would much rather they apply a targeted approach of ensuring privacy is always available to those who want it, without trying to eliminate public digital spaces as a category.