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No. Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed is what is stupid. The Internet is supposed to be distributed. We've gotten so used

No. Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed is what is stupid. The Internet is supposed to be distributed. We've gotten so used to consolidated services that we have forgotten this lesson.

skrowl 3y ago
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badtension 3y ago
> No. Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed is what is stupid. Sounds like the issues we currently have with democracy.
- seanw444 3y ago
  Distributed power takes more effort. Of course people naturally trend towards lazy over the generations because it's easier and more efficient at the cost of everything it was initially supposed to be. And now we are where we are: executive branch agencies legislating.
  - badtension 3y ago
    That's why we shouldn't optimize everything, the longer I live the more I understand that overoptimization is the root of all evil. We should analyse what we are doing and how we are changing things in the long term, monitor the situation and adjust accordingly. Otherwise our systems will find a local optimum that benefit the most powerful groups. Happens in all aspects of life, modern capitalism being the prime example.
    - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
      Neil Postman was only slightly wrong. Optimizing Ourselves to Death indeed.
convolvatron 3y ago
don't you think one is a consequence of the other?
staplers 3y ago
Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed This is human nature/greed unfortunately. Look at any natural (distributed) resource. The current economic system rewards this as well.
- osmarks 3y ago
  It is not an issue of human nature. Centralization just makes implementation waaaay easier. Distributed systems design is very hard.
- eddythompson80 3y ago
  There is a failure of technology too. The internet is distributed, sure, but the server-client architecture puts all the operational burden on the server. The expectation that everyone will run their own internet exposed instance of any thing is still simply not feasible, even today. The operational complexity of security, availability, monitoring etc are unmanageable even for technical users. Back when smaller forums were popular, hearing of a forum getting hacked was pretty much the norm. They get hacked, they go down for few days, they come back from a backup losing few days or hours of data, and on to the next vbulletin. Phpbb, nuke, or whatever vulnerability/hack. There doesn’t yet exist a distributed system that can replace something like facebook, twitter, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, instagram, or even WhatsApp without a significant operational burden or added complexity. It’s also not a very interesting problem to solve because of the type of cliffs you will run into due to precisely how the “internet works”
hkt 3y ago
Centralisation vs decentralisation in tech is pretty much irrelevant. What is relevant is governance. We allow billionaires and venture capitalists to govern a commons that we all rely on. Surprise surprise, it isn't going well. The solution is not to have (difficult to scale) federated alternatives. The solution is collective ownership. Imagine for a moment that the multinationals that are increasingly in charge of our lives were owned by their customers. Imagine they had a fair electoral system, reflecting the variety of those users, limiting them to one person, one vote, and that their constitutions were designed to guarantee the rights of minorities. The journey that most countries went on through the 20th and 21st centuries, in other words. Tech giants and other multinationals are a different kind of beast, because they govern a little slice of our lives instead of having carte blanche. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility for democratically operated multinationals to exist. It will be hard to do, but IMO, that approach has a bright future because non-techies can grasp it and participate in it more easily, and that is one less barrier to a runaway network effect than the fediverse has.
- MrOwen 3y ago
  Can you not have both? Each federated instance costs money to upkeep. Some instances could elect for collective ownership or even elect to donate for develop (probably this needs to be carefully considered to deter corporate ownership). I like your idea but I think there needs to be an interim step and for now, maybe that's federation. Maybe we'll get to the place you speak of... one day.
  - hkt 3y ago
    We won't get there while people would rather rely on doing a bit of systems administration and hoping a developer can pay the bills. Not without strictly ideologically motivated admins and devs.
flyinghamster 3y ago
It's that old tradeoff - convenience vs. single point of failure. Unfortunately, we're getting to see now what that single point of failure does to us. A big chunk of the open web is winking out of existence at this very moment.

skrowl 3y ago

[dead]

badtension 3y ago

> No. Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed is what is stupid. Sounds like the issues we currently have with democracy.

seanw444 3y ago
Distributed power takes more effort. Of course people naturally trend towards lazy over the generations because it's easier and more efficient at the cost of everything it was initially supposed to be. And now we are where we are: executive branch agencies legislating.
- badtension 3y ago
  That's why we shouldn't optimize everything, the longer I live the more I understand that overoptimization is the root of all evil. We should analyse what we are doing and how we are changing things in the long term, monitor the situation and adjust accordingly. Otherwise our systems will find a local optimum that benefit the most powerful groups. Happens in all aspects of life, modern capitalism being the prime example.
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Neil Postman was only slightly wrong. Optimizing Ourselves to Death indeed.

convolvatron 3y ago

don't you think one is a consequence of the other?

staplers 3y ago

Centralizing control of something that was designed to be distributed This is human nature/greed unfortunately. Look at any natural (distributed) resource. The current economic system rewards this as well.

osmarks 3y ago
It is not an issue of human nature. Centralization just makes implementation waaaay easier. Distributed systems design is very hard.
eddythompson80 3y ago
There is a failure of technology too. The internet is distributed, sure, but the server-client architecture puts all the operational burden on the server. The expectation that everyone will run their own internet exposed instance of any thing is still simply not feasible, even today. The operational complexity of security, availability, monitoring etc are unmanageable even for technical users. Back when smaller forums were popular, hearing of a forum getting hacked was pretty much the norm. They get hacked, they go down for few days, they come back from a backup losing few days or hours of data, and on to the next vbulletin. Phpbb, nuke, or whatever vulnerability/hack. There doesn’t yet exist a distributed system that can replace something like facebook, twitter, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, instagram, or even WhatsApp without a significant operational burden or added complexity. It’s also not a very interesting problem to solve because of the type of cliffs you will run into due to precisely how the “internet works”

hkt 3y ago

Centralisation vs decentralisation in tech is pretty much irrelevant. What is relevant is governance. We allow billionaires and venture capitalists to govern a commons that we all rely on. Surprise surprise, it isn't going well. The solution is not to have (difficult to scale) federated alternatives. The solution is collective ownership. Imagine for a moment that the multinationals that are increasingly in charge of our lives were owned by their customers. Imagine they had a fair electoral system, reflecting the variety of those users, limiting them to one person, one vote, and that their constitutions were designed to guarantee the rights of minorities. The journey that most countries went on through the 20th and 21st centuries, in other words. Tech giants and other multinationals are a different kind of beast, because they govern a little slice of our lives instead of having carte blanche. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility for democratically operated multinationals to exist. It will be hard to do, but IMO, that approach has a bright future because non-techies can grasp it and participate in it more easily, and that is one less barrier to a runaway network effect than the fediverse has.

MrOwen 3y ago
Can you not have both? Each federated instance costs money to upkeep. Some instances could elect for collective ownership or even elect to donate for develop (probably this needs to be carefully considered to deter corporate ownership). I like your idea but I think there needs to be an interim step and for now, maybe that's federation. Maybe we'll get to the place you speak of... one day.
- hkt 3y ago
  We won't get there while people would rather rely on doing a bit of systems administration and hoping a developer can pay the bills. Not without strictly ideologically motivated admins and devs.

flyinghamster 3y ago

It's that old tradeoff - convenience vs. single point of failure. Unfortunately, we're getting to see now what that single point of failure does to us. A big chunk of the open web is winking out of existence at this very moment.