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I don't think the client-server model is popular because people are behind home routers, but because it reflects the inherent asymmetry of producers and consume

I don't think the client-server model is popular because people are behind home routers, but because it reflects the inherent asymmetry of producers and consumers. People being behind home routers is not a cause of that, but a state of affairs that is not-noticed by or tolerable for most because of this asymmetry. This asymmetry is not caused by any technical limitation; even on Wikipedia, which is probably the prototypical crowdsourced site, editors are vastly outnumbered by readers. I don't disagree with the ideal of everyone being able to serve their own content directly to the internet, I just don't think it reflects reality, specifically the abilities and inclinations of most people. I'm curious how people come to hold on to such beliefs when they are so incongruous with actual human behavior.

vertex-four 12y ago
> People being behind home routers is not a cause of that, but a state of affairs that is not-noticed by or tolerable for most because of this asymmetry. I would say that a great many things are not noticed by or are tolerated by the majority, and it's only when they're presented with a better solution do they notice. Even client-server business models can benefit from peer-to-peer communications. The most obvious is media providers using their clients' connections to avoid having to maintain as large a CDN, and to cut some costs that way. If someone's listened or watched something near you, you can download from them instead. And then there's all sorts of systems which really could be truly peer-to-peer, from social networking to a replacement for ebay.