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We seem to have, in our fervor over decentralization, forgotten that centralization of systems and services leads to lower cost and higher efficiency. That's wh
by arcticbull 4y ago
We seem to have, in our fervor over decentralization, forgotten that centralization of systems and services leads to lower cost and higher efficiency. That's why we do it now, and that's why it's been an emergent property of human systems for millennia.
A decentralized uber - just like a gig economy uber - cannot benefit from pooling leases, cannot benefit from pooling insurance and as a result has a higher cost basis than a taxi service. People will take the cheapest option when a service is a commodity.
This is just as true of food delivery.
Decentralization has no inherent value to a customer beyond the ideological. Stop decentralizing things for its own sake and start focusing on the economics.
- htag 4y agoIs it true that the absolute costs associated with centralization is lower than decentralization? Maybe there's some efficiencies in bulk orders, but there's so much overhead with BigCorp I would expect that the actual operating costs would be lower.
- arcticbull 4y agoNo evaluation of a decentralized idea is complete without an economic assessment because we know that the economics are a serious potential issue. If you do that and it makes sense, go with god, but the burden of proof is on the proposer that the business makes even the slightest bit of sense.
- ericmcer 4y agoIt isn't inherently more efficient, humans are just bad at organizing past a certain scale so companies needed middle managers/accountants/executives. A single individual handling insurance/billing/accounting/legal would be crazy in the past but it is feasible today. In decentralized the centralization still exists it is just offloaded to software.
- arcticbull 4y agoIs there, today, a single decentralized system that is measurably more efficient than a centralized solution? Please do not include regulatory arbitrage where rules are simply not followed due to lack of will or ability to enforce.