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Mastodon is not "decentralized". Federation is not decentralization. If that were the case, SMTP would be a decentralized protocol. Something that has a point o
by rabite 5y ago
Mastodon is not "decentralized". Federation is not decentralization. If that were the case, SMTP would be a decentralized protocol. Something that has a point of centralization is not decentralized. The Mastodon node is the point of centralization. Decentralized protocols generally have a continuous graph, not individual centralized shards.
- mdoms 5y ago(De)centralization is a spectrum, not a boolean.
- rabite 5y agoMastodon is nowhere on the entire spectrum of decentralized. No component of it provides decentralization.
- betwixthewires 5y agoWell anyone can run an instance. Theoretically every user can run their own instance. So it's not architecturally incapable of being decentralized, but social behavior leaves it in it's current state. To me that's good enough, make something that can be as decentralized as people want it to be and let people use it how they use it.
- rabite 5y agoIf everyone ran their own SMTP server, SMTP would still not be decentralized. There are additional points of failure on simple federation that are outside of the owner-operator's control. Their domain name can be frozen or stolen by the registrar (this actually happened extensively to many websites, most notoriously The Daily Stormer which was suspended by dozens of "free speech" registrars and dozens of national ccTLDs). They can be denied IP transit or transport, or blackholed by specific ASNs. Decentralized protocols will provide graph access in absence of centralized resources.
- wallfacer120 5y agoPeople get very excited by the word decentralized - I think its because it gives the feeling of BOTH being part of a group and not being controlled or restricted.