But the protocol used and the latency are not linked at all. You can use a proprietary protocol to run a centralized service, you can use a proprietary protocol

But the protocol used and the latency are not linked at all. You can use a proprietary protocol to run a centralized service, you can use a proprietary protocol to run a decentralized service, you can use a public protocol to run a centralized service, you can use a public protocol to run a decentralized service. And of course you can also mix them, insofar as they interface. For example, building a decentralized version of a stock ticker system sounds cool but in practice its performance will never be as good as the original centralized version. Well, yes - but the question is, how fast is fast enough, for most applications? And wouldn't it make more sense for the people who need to have really, really fast exchange of status updates, to sign up for the largest, fastest provider -- instead of everybody having to be there, just because some people need it real-time, all the time? Personally, I prefer some latency actually. I like being able to edit thoughts after I posted them, and so on. I like being able to search stuff and organize it -- Twitter fails dysmally in that aspect, if it wasn't for the "that's a joke, right?" limit of 140 characters. And if something really important happens, it will show up on blogs and news sites a few days later. Friends will tell me about it. Personally I need information I can ACT on, not just... stuff... that clogs me up. New software or knowledge is usually still fine when it's even a week old, or more. It's not like I can instantly learn it. And that something is popular is not something I need to know while it's popular, actually, a delay filters quite a lot of lame stuff out. And again, you can still build the exact same thing centralized and interoperable with slower leaf nodes, on open protocols. People just don't wanna because then they don't get to license it to others, and brand things that are much prettier and more useful unbranded. To me the proof that it's people problem is that the technical problems are more or less solved, or at least proven to be solvable (there's always room for improvement, none of our protocols are utterly fantastic). The people with the most energy are the ones that are kinda greedy. There are sparks of genius or excitement here and there, but they disperse too easily, while the ones that keep at it are the ones who should give it a rest, so the rest can think and build things that are by and for everybody, forever.