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Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. Skype started out as a p2p thing. But ultimately, video calls became a commodity where orchestrating the

Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. Skype started out as a p2p thing. But ultimately, video calls became a commodity where orchestrating them centrally proved to be good enough. I can make video calls with meets, facebook, whatsapp, signal, slack, etc. Not a big deal. I even still have Skype somewhere and it still works even though they ripped out the p2p bits ages ago. I'm not sure what web3 is other than a label that people started slapping on the collective efforts of people vaguely doing anything with or depending on some kind of block chain thingy. IMHO it has very little to do with the web and little or no relevance to end users. From a technical point of view, I don't see anything wrong with having a distributed store of ownership of stuff. There are all sorts of useful and valid uses for that. The problem is all the hyena's with dollar signs in their eyes floating around any companies active in this space. It's hard to see the forest for the trees because of this. Doing anything with a blockchain almost automatically buckets you with the fraudsters, utopians, and other people plaguing this space. Most of the companies in this space are a combination of naive, fraudulent, or misguided. With a few notable exceptions where you might squint and see some potential of some actual economic value. But most of them are obvious duds. I actually briefly used Stellar for some actual applications. Great tech. Mostly works as advertised. Not that expensive to use. Etc.

masklinn 5y ago
> Nothing wrong with p2p. The article doesn't imply (let alone say) that there's anything wrong with p2p? To the extent that it says anything positive about p2p, it's rather positive. Unless you're one of those americans for whom "communist" reflexively aliases to "bad" I guess?
- remram 5y ago
  >> Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. > you're one of those americans for whom "communist" ... The GP is making some comment about the technical merits of P2P which segues naturally from the article. You can agree, you can disagree, but I really don't know what just did.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  Collectivism as a means of ordering a society necessarily tramples individual liberty, which yes, generally speaking, is bad. Communism is a subset of collectivism, just one of the flavors we've seen, so it is a collection of ideas that may be judged by their outcomes as bad. Has zero to do with tech, however.
- throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
  >Unless you're one of those americans for whom "communist" reflexively aliases to "bad" it's usually people who had actually lived under communism who have that reaction
  - oblak 5y ago
    Not even remotely in the same canned way that feels like mindless parroting myths about "communism". Seen it so many times. Yeah, I have lived under communist rule. That's not the reason I can easily spot such nonsense but it certainly helps a bit.
anamax 5y ago
> Skype started out as a p2p thing. But ultimately, video calls became a commodity where orchestrating them centrally proved to be good enough. It's my understanding that "phone" without the ability to tap is illegal in the US. IIRC, the "must be able to let the govt listen" requirement occurred at the same time as Skpye switched models and the requirement was given as the reason for said switch.
- salawat 5y ago
  That applies only for Common Carriers. Skype is not Common Carrier. It's an Internet Service which ISP's have been deadset on avoiding getting classified as covered under Common Carrier obligations because it would entail, according to them, enormous harm to the profitability of the sector due to the cost of increased regulatory compliance". Telco's/Telephony must provide pen register/tap capability. Internet services as of yet need not. Until you become big enough for Federal LE to start harassing. The relevant regulation in question is CALEA.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  It might be some sort of opaque incentive where gov goons tell you they’ll make life difficult for you if you don’t comply, but I certainly have not ever seen this being an open requirement. Signal still exists, for example.
  - marricks 5y ago
    I mean, look what happened to Qwest. It’s totally believable.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  As far as I know Signal voice calls are not illegal, and do not provide an ability to tap, and are p2p in network architecture. So I'm not sure that's accurate that there were any such legal limits on Skype, I'd like to see a citation to more info.
- ohthehugemanate 5y ago
  > It's my understanding that "phone" without the ability to tap is illegal in the US. This is not true. Else you couldn't have whatsapp or signal calls (e2e encrypted). In 2009, Skype made the argument with the ACLU that they are not a telecoms carrier, and are therefore exempt from CALEA and similar regulations. Additionally, Skype's original CSEO refused to promise that they did not support wiretaps in the original architecture. We know from Edward Snowden that "old Skype" was included in NSA data sources. Skype changed architecture because routing calls through neighboring, always-on nodes is not practical in a mobile world where 50%+ of users pay for their data by the MB, and have spotty connections with high latency. For several years before the rearchitecture, Microsoft propped up the network by running all the supernodes itself.
mempko 5y ago
Skype became centralized about the time Microsoft joined the PRISM spying program. I don't think it becoming centralized had anything to do with p2p being a problem...
xg15 5y ago
I think this conflates a bit p2p as a technical means and p2p as a means to organise control. Like, there are all kinds of products which use p2p architectures internally to solve some technical problem - bit torrent is sometimes used inside updaters, elasticsearch organizes its nodes as a p2p network for greater robustness and scalability, WebRTC let's you make direct connections between browsers to save roundtrips, etc etc. But those are just technical details - the products themselves are still controlled and administered by a central entity. In contrast, crypto, file sharing and federated systems use p2p as a technical means but they are also administered in a decentralised fashion, where no person or entity has ultimate control (or should have at least). I think Skype was falling squarely in the first category here: They were experimenting with decentralised network protocols, but the nodes were all pretty clearly belonging to a singular and centrally controlled product. That's why p2p really just was an implementation detail that could be replaced by a different technical architecture by a simple update. (Weird thought as an aside: I think most companies or organisations follow a sort of similar pattern: They are communist with respect to coworkers of equal status ("everyone should chip in for Carol's birthday present"), authoritarian with respect to management and owners - and libertarian/anarchist with respect to the outside world ("freedom! ...from annoying rules and regulations..."). But that doesn't mean leadership necessarily follows communist, authoritarian or anarchist principles when deciding strategy)
thawaya3113 5y ago
Skype’s quality, and subsequently popularity, dropped significantly after they removed the P2P bits. There’s still nothing that comes close to the call quality Skype provided for long distance calls, especially when the network may not be as good on 1 end.
Animats 5y ago
Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. P2P may have a comeback, because home connections are becoming more symmetrical. DSL usually had relatively low uplink rates, and COMCAST cable was worse. But fiber is usually symmetrical, and 5G wireless typically has an uplink bandwidth of half the downlink rate. This makes P2P more feasible.
- Kwpolska 5y ago
  Technically, it might be more feasible. But is it really necessary? What actual benefits to users could more P2P bring?
  - username923409 5y ago
    Reliability could be improved if all required functionality is P2P, as the program would not need to rely on a third party server. Of course, this assumes that the party/parties on the other end of the P2P connection are online, which is the downside of all P2P services. Another underrated benefit of P2P (if implemented in good faith) is that the users will have peace of mind with regards to the ownership of their data.
    - threeseed 5y ago
      Except that it is rarely a single third party server. Every semi-popular website will be highly available. And with the popularity of the cloud it has made it available across data centres and even regions. So it is debatable whether P2P is more reliable than centralised.
    - warkdarrior 5y ago
      > if implemented in good faith ... users will have peace of mind with regards to the ownership of their data Famous last words! Not sure how users will establish the trustworthiness of P2P protocols (and there will be many competing versions), when now they cannot determine the trustworthiness of one service.
      - 5y ago

masklinn 5y ago

> Nothing wrong with p2p. The article doesn't imply (let alone say) that there's anything wrong with p2p? To the extent that it says anything positive about p2p, it's rather positive. Unless you're one of those americans for whom "communist" reflexively aliases to "bad" I guess?

remram 5y ago
>> Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. > you're one of those americans for whom "communist" ... The GP is making some comment about the technical merits of P2P which segues naturally from the article. You can agree, you can disagree, but I really don't know what just did.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
slowmovintarget 5y ago
Collectivism as a means of ordering a society necessarily tramples individual liberty, which yes, generally speaking, is bad. Communism is a subset of collectivism, just one of the flavors we've seen, so it is a collection of ideas that may be judged by their outcomes as bad. Has zero to do with tech, however.
throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
>Unless you're one of those americans for whom "communist" reflexively aliases to "bad" it's usually people who had actually lived under communism who have that reaction
- oblak 5y ago
  Not even remotely in the same canned way that feels like mindless parroting myths about "communism". Seen it so many times. Yeah, I have lived under communist rule. That's not the reason I can easily spot such nonsense but it certainly helps a bit.

anamax 5y ago

> Skype started out as a p2p thing. But ultimately, video calls became a commodity where orchestrating them centrally proved to be good enough. It's my understanding that "phone" without the ability to tap is illegal in the US. IIRC, the "must be able to let the govt listen" requirement occurred at the same time as Skpye switched models and the requirement was given as the reason for said switch.

salawat 5y ago
That applies only for Common Carriers. Skype is not Common Carrier. It's an Internet Service which ISP's have been deadset on avoiding getting classified as covered under Common Carrier obligations because it would entail, according to them, enormous harm to the profitability of the sector due to the cost of increased regulatory compliance". Telco's/Telephony must provide pen register/tap capability. Internet services as of yet need not. Until you become big enough for Federal LE to start harassing. The relevant regulation in question is CALEA.
xyzzyz 5y ago
It might be some sort of opaque incentive where gov goons tell you they’ll make life difficult for you if you don’t comply, but I certainly have not ever seen this being an open requirement. Signal still exists, for example.
- marricks 5y ago
  I mean, look what happened to Qwest. It’s totally believable.
jrochkind1 5y ago
As far as I know Signal voice calls are not illegal, and do not provide an ability to tap, and are p2p in network architecture. So I'm not sure that's accurate that there were any such legal limits on Skype, I'd like to see a citation to more info.
ohthehugemanate 5y ago
> It's my understanding that "phone" without the ability to tap is illegal in the US. This is not true. Else you couldn't have whatsapp or signal calls (e2e encrypted). In 2009, Skype made the argument with the ACLU that they are not a telecoms carrier, and are therefore exempt from CALEA and similar regulations. Additionally, Skype's original CSEO refused to promise that they did not support wiretaps in the original architecture. We know from Edward Snowden that "old Skype" was included in NSA data sources. Skype changed architecture because routing calls through neighboring, always-on nodes is not practical in a mobile world where 50%+ of users pay for their data by the MB, and have spotty connections with high latency. For several years before the rearchitecture, Microsoft propped up the network by running all the supernodes itself.

mempko 5y ago

Skype became centralized about the time Microsoft joined the PRISM spying program. I don't think it becoming centralized had anything to do with p2p being a problem...

xg15 5y ago

I think this conflates a bit p2p as a technical means and p2p as a means to organise control. Like, there are all kinds of products which use p2p architectures internally to solve some technical problem - bit torrent is sometimes used inside updaters, elasticsearch organizes its nodes as a p2p network for greater robustness and scalability, WebRTC let's you make direct connections between browsers to save roundtrips, etc etc. But those are just technical details - the products themselves are still controlled and administered by a central entity. In contrast, crypto, file sharing and federated systems use p2p as a technical means but they are also administered in a decentralised fashion, where no person or entity has ultimate control (or should have at least). I think Skype was falling squarely in the first category here: They were experimenting with decentralised network protocols, but the nodes were all pretty clearly belonging to a singular and centrally controlled product. That's why p2p really just was an implementation detail that could be replaced by a different technical architecture by a simple update. (Weird thought as an aside: I think most companies or organisations follow a sort of similar pattern: They are communist with respect to coworkers of equal status ("everyone should chip in for Carol's birthday present"), authoritarian with respect to management and owners - and libertarian/anarchist with respect to the outside world ("freedom! ...from annoying rules and regulations..."). But that doesn't mean leadership necessarily follows communist, authoritarian or anarchist principles when deciding strategy)

thawaya3113 5y ago

Skype’s quality, and subsequently popularity, dropped significantly after they removed the P2P bits. There’s still nothing that comes close to the call quality Skype provided for long distance calls, especially when the network may not be as good on 1 end.

Animats 5y ago

Nothing wrong with p2p. But often it's simply overkill. P2P may have a comeback, because home connections are becoming more symmetrical. DSL usually had relatively low uplink rates, and COMCAST cable was worse. But fiber is usually symmetrical, and 5G wireless typically has an uplink bandwidth of half the downlink rate. This makes P2P more feasible.

Kwpolska 5y ago
Technically, it might be more feasible. But is it really necessary? What actual benefits to users could more P2P bring?
- username923409 5y ago
  Reliability could be improved if all required functionality is P2P, as the program would not need to rely on a third party server. Of course, this assumes that the party/parties on the other end of the P2P connection are online, which is the downside of all P2P services. Another underrated benefit of P2P (if implemented in good faith) is that the users will have peace of mind with regards to the ownership of their data.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    Except that it is rarely a single third party server. Every semi-popular website will be highly available. And with the popularity of the cloud it has made it available across data centres and even regions. So it is debatable whether P2P is more reliable than centralised.
  - warkdarrior 5y ago
    > if implemented in good faith ... users will have peace of mind with regards to the ownership of their data Famous last words! Not sure how users will establish the trustworthiness of P2P protocols (and there will be many competing versions), when now they cannot determine the trustworthiness of one service.
    - 5y ago