4 ms·

What I don't get is that the big point about web3 is decentralisation and democratic access to data. Don't we have this with the Fediverse?

Yizahi 4y ago
Actually it's all about centralisation of content and money and locking down everything beyond paywalls. So, real decentralisation movements are the opposite of the tokenbro dystopia.
Scarblac 4y ago
Don't we have this with the World Wide Web, since its beginning?
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Nope. The kiwi farms situation demonstrated that the whole internet is under the control of a very slim number of individuals.
  - Zanfa 4y ago
    This sounds exactly like the crypto universe, which seems to be mostly controlled/manipulated by a small number of (crypto) billionaires and their shadowy corporations.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      That’s true. I’m very disappointed that crypto has misdirected decentralised systems in to becoming useless hype scams resulting in almost no progress in the last decade. We have a bunch of hype tech like IPFS but I’m still yet to see a single website using it. Tor onion sites are still the most useful tool there is for censorship proof hosting.
  - pornel 4y ago
    Or maybe it's controlled by many different individuals and organizations, but very few of them want to cooperate with fascist tormentors. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
    - mcosta 4y ago
      The problem is who decides who is a fascist tormentor.
      - pornel 4y ago
        In this case everyone involved, over and over again. There's widespread agreement they're scum.
        Gigachad 4y ago
        This shouldn't matter. In an ideal world, if someone wants a website online and they are complying with the local laws, they should be able to have a website online. I don't think we need to force individual companies to host it, but we should restructure the internet so the decision is out of their hands. Currently we have a fatal flaw where ISPs are able to start disrupting traffic to certain IPs. They aren't hosting it, but they are a middle man from end user ISPs to the host ISP. It would have been nice if all the crypto bros had built something actually useful for decentralized hosting rather than hype scams that don't work for real world usage.
- happymellon 4y ago
  Sort of, selfhosted websites is definitely a thing. However my thoughts around Fediverse is more that you own your data, you can transfer your data about and corporations can't shut your down.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Is it still democratic if there's a barrier to entry (in the form of transaction costs, expert knowledge requirement, and shady organizations controlling things since web3 things aren't actually fully decentralized)
- happymellon 4y ago
  Personally I don't, and as stated by my question I don't believe that any "web3 solution" is better than anything that already exists. However, it is still effectively democratic access to the data when anyone can look at the chain to get the information. Whether that's any better than anything else that already exists is doubtful but it does reduce the value of ownership as shown by NFTs.

Yizahi 4y ago

Actually it's all about centralisation of content and money and locking down everything beyond paywalls. So, real decentralisation movements are the opposite of the tokenbro dystopia.

Scarblac 4y ago

Don't we have this with the World Wide Web, since its beginning?

Gigachad 4y ago
Nope. The kiwi farms situation demonstrated that the whole internet is under the control of a very slim number of individuals.
- Zanfa 4y ago
  This sounds exactly like the crypto universe, which seems to be mostly controlled/manipulated by a small number of (crypto) billionaires and their shadowy corporations.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    That’s true. I’m very disappointed that crypto has misdirected decentralised systems in to becoming useless hype scams resulting in almost no progress in the last decade. We have a bunch of hype tech like IPFS but I’m still yet to see a single website using it. Tor onion sites are still the most useful tool there is for censorship proof hosting.
- pornel 4y ago
  Or maybe it's controlled by many different individuals and organizations, but very few of them want to cooperate with fascist tormentors. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  - mcosta 4y ago
    The problem is who decides who is a fascist tormentor.
    - pornel 4y ago
      In this case everyone involved, over and over again. There's widespread agreement they're scum.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        This shouldn't matter. In an ideal world, if someone wants a website online and they are complying with the local laws, they should be able to have a website online. I don't think we need to force individual companies to host it, but we should restructure the internet so the decision is out of their hands. Currently we have a fatal flaw where ISPs are able to start disrupting traffic to certain IPs. They aren't hosting it, but they are a middle man from end user ISPs to the host ISP. It would have been nice if all the crypto bros had built something actually useful for decentralized hosting rather than hype scams that don't work for real world usage.
happymellon 4y ago
Sort of, selfhosted websites is definitely a thing. However my thoughts around Fediverse is more that you own your data, you can transfer your data about and corporations can't shut your down.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Is it still democratic if there's a barrier to entry (in the form of transaction costs, expert knowledge requirement, and shady organizations controlling things since web3 things aren't actually fully decentralized)

happymellon 4y ago
Personally I don't, and as stated by my question I don't believe that any "web3 solution" is better than anything that already exists. However, it is still effectively democratic access to the data when anyone can look at the chain to get the information. Whether that's any better than anything else that already exists is doubtful but it does reduce the value of ownership as shown by NFTs.