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People centralize because centralization solves real problems they have. If we want decentralization, we have to build alternatives as convenient and simple as

People centralize because centralization solves real problems they have. If we want decentralization, we have to build alternatives as convenient and simple as the centralized ones, and that's a hard project.

imiric 3y ago
Right. This is a convenience problem because the web has no analogue to the browser for publishing content. If publishing content would be as convenient and simple as consuming it, there would be no need for users to flock to publishing services. Most of the centralized services today simplify publishing. Any "community" that forms around them is entirely incidental, and in the case of global social media, mostly harmful. I think this is a problem the early web should've solved[1]. Now that the centralized model is dominant, most people wouldn't see a reason to change their habits, even if a new solution would be easier and simpler, and not just better on a technical or privacy level (which most people don't care about anyway). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659814
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  I don’t know. Stick everyones data in a single DB and have private business logic can do anything decentralised protocols can do but not vice versa. At least in respect to building the addictive attention seeking experiences that are needed for “success”. Decentralized has one advantage though. You choose your user agent. For example your browser, your bitcoin client, your email client and so on.
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  Netscape 4 came with Composer, Windows/Office used to come with FrontPage. People had content creation tools integrated with their browsers, but didn't use them and so they went away. I think it's because the tools were too un-opinionated and unconstrained, so if you wanted to do e.g. a blog then generic HTML editors were too much work even though they were visual. Also, static content publishing is almost never enough. You at least want(ed) search and to understand if anyone is visiting, but then you're into the realm of needing databases and such.
  - imiric 3y ago
    > Netscape 4 came with Composer, Windows/Office used to come with FrontPage. Those are WYSIWYG tools only, which besides being a nightmare to work with, don't solve the actual serving problem. The earliest product that came close to that use case AFAIK was Opera's Unite in 2009, but it didn't last long. By that point it was already too late, since users mostly had asymmetric connections, so serving any type of content from their home network was infeasible. (Had the web launched with easy publishing tools, ISPs would've been forced to offer symmetric connections from the start, and this wouldn't have been a major issue.) > Also, static content publishing is almost never enough. True, but there's no reason these tools couldn't have evolved to allow dynamic content as well. Nowadays we have many different approaches that could make this possible, cobbled together from bits and pieces of native and alternative web technologies. Centralized services do make this easier, and who knows, we might've settled on them anyway, but I believe the general perception about user data would've been much different for the better had these tools existed from the start.
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      I don't think there was ever much chance of people running servers from home, if only because back then computers were noisy and power management didn't work well, so it was normal to turn them off at night. But most ISPs offered some web serving space via ftp so that wasn't an issue. It was more just that the tools were too much work. Obviously they were still a lot easier than coding it all by hand!
idle_zealot 3y ago
>as convenient and simple as the centralized ones I don't think that's sufficient. Take Mastodon for instance. The user count surged recently, demonstrating that it's not actually difficult to adopt or use as a Twitter alternative. But people tend to prefer algorithmically-driven social media that's optimized not to give them agency, but to be maximally attention-grabbing and sticky. The centralized and profit-motivated product is worse in the sense that it wastes more of the user's time and makes seeing the things they've explicitly followed more difficult, but that particular kind of "worse" by design is more popular. I don't really have a solution to propose here, just want to point out that sometimes the worse option wins by virtue of being worse, so being "as convenient and simple", or even being better is not always enough to attract people.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  It took some really bad stewardship of Twitter to cause those surges!
- myaccountonhn 3y ago
  People also adopted email without fail.

imiric 3y ago

Right. This is a convenience problem because the web has no analogue to the browser for publishing content. If publishing content would be as convenient and simple as consuming it, there would be no need for users to flock to publishing services. Most of the centralized services today simplify publishing. Any "community" that forms around them is entirely incidental, and in the case of global social media, mostly harmful. I think this is a problem the early web should've solved[1]. Now that the centralized model is dominant, most people wouldn't see a reason to change their habits, even if a new solution would be easier and simpler, and not just better on a technical or privacy level (which most people don't care about anyway). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659814

quickthrower2 3y ago
I don’t know. Stick everyones data in a single DB and have private business logic can do anything decentralised protocols can do but not vice versa. At least in respect to building the addictive attention seeking experiences that are needed for “success”. Decentralized has one advantage though. You choose your user agent. For example your browser, your bitcoin client, your email client and so on.
mike_hearn 3y ago
Netscape 4 came with Composer, Windows/Office used to come with FrontPage. People had content creation tools integrated with their browsers, but didn't use them and so they went away. I think it's because the tools were too un-opinionated and unconstrained, so if you wanted to do e.g. a blog then generic HTML editors were too much work even though they were visual. Also, static content publishing is almost never enough. You at least want(ed) search and to understand if anyone is visiting, but then you're into the realm of needing databases and such.
- imiric 3y ago
  > Netscape 4 came with Composer, Windows/Office used to come with FrontPage. Those are WYSIWYG tools only, which besides being a nightmare to work with, don't solve the actual serving problem. The earliest product that came close to that use case AFAIK was Opera's Unite in 2009, but it didn't last long. By that point it was already too late, since users mostly had asymmetric connections, so serving any type of content from their home network was infeasible. (Had the web launched with easy publishing tools, ISPs would've been forced to offer symmetric connections from the start, and this wouldn't have been a major issue.) > Also, static content publishing is almost never enough. True, but there's no reason these tools couldn't have evolved to allow dynamic content as well. Nowadays we have many different approaches that could make this possible, cobbled together from bits and pieces of native and alternative web technologies. Centralized services do make this easier, and who knows, we might've settled on them anyway, but I believe the general perception about user data would've been much different for the better had these tools existed from the start.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    I don't think there was ever much chance of people running servers from home, if only because back then computers were noisy and power management didn't work well, so it was normal to turn them off at night. But most ISPs offered some web serving space via ftp so that wasn't an issue. It was more just that the tools were too much work. Obviously they were still a lot easier than coding it all by hand!

idle_zealot 3y ago

>as convenient and simple as the centralized ones I don't think that's sufficient. Take Mastodon for instance. The user count surged recently, demonstrating that it's not actually difficult to adopt or use as a Twitter alternative. But people tend to prefer algorithmically-driven social media that's optimized not to give them agency, but to be maximally attention-grabbing and sticky. The centralized and profit-motivated product is worse in the sense that it wastes more of the user's time and makes seeing the things they've explicitly followed more difficult, but that particular kind of "worse" by design is more popular. I don't really have a solution to propose here, just want to point out that sometimes the worse option wins by virtue of being worse, so being "as convenient and simple", or even being better is not always enough to attract people.

quickthrower2 3y ago
It took some really bad stewardship of Twitter to cause those surges!
myaccountonhn 3y ago
People also adopted email without fail.