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I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about the fact that it was a public venue. Your self-hosted blog is basically like standing in your own private living

I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about the fact that it was a public venue. Your self-hosted blog is basically like standing in your own private living room and selling your newspaper. Facebook is like a private indoor shopping mall with no guarantees for free speech. The only way to be heard on the Internet is to go over to someone's private property and hope that they'll let you inside to talk. A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet.

maratd 12y ago
> A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet. Gnutella. 15 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella
- williamcotton 12y ago
  But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. Data stored with these service cannot be reliable retrieved.
  - maratd 12y ago
    > But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. and > A consensus database ... Yup. If the database isn't ephemeral, it can't be a consensus database. If it's the consensus that certain data should disappear, then it should disappear. If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database.
    - williamcotton 12y ago
      If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database. Expecting data the has been publicly broadcast to be capable of being erased from existence is a lost cause. A better solution is to embrace the permanence of publication. The Way-back Machine watches all. The solution is much like with git. Append a delete or a subtraction to the chain. Software in userland can then make it appear as if though edits or deletions have been made.