A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

Gys wrote: post #56

To most people (99% ?) Facebook, Instagram, Google etc offer everything they want. So they do not feel a need for getting the 'power back'. It all comes down to perceived (!) value. Once people use one thing, they will only switch if something else offers a clear higher value. At that point offering the same value is not enough anymore. This higher value has to be something that makes every day life in a very obvious…

Post by nojvek » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 4:00 PM UTC

adekok wrote: post #88

chestnut-tree wrote: post #35

A real barrier to a decentralised web is the difficulty of installing software on a server. I know that sounds really mundane and inconsequential in the broader debate about a decentralised web, but consider the following... Imagine if installing a server-side chat app, message board, project management app, or CMS were as easy as installing a desktop app. In a desktop app, it's usually one click to start the install…

> A real barrier to a decentralised web is the difficulty of installing software on a server. Also, economies of scale. If people used a decentralized service called "UnFaceBook", the total cost of servers, administration, etc. would dwarf the cost of Facebook running their data centres. From a business perspective, it's just not feasible. Hmm... perhaps everyone running their own systems is, in fact, doable. Most pe…

Post by tunap » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

mixedCase wrote: post #2

"A decentralized web would be very slightly inconvenient to the people so forget about your freedom and privacy who cares about that." More realistic title. It would make for a shorter article though.

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #119

dredmorbius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider what it takes to have a substantial advertising market: you need goods, you need buyers, you need sellers who are providing a great deal of a good (or are selling very high-ticket items for which buyers are thin), and you need means for transporting both the advertisments and the goods to buyers. Hamilton Holt, a publisher himself (of The Independent magazine) starts off the linked work by detailing this. Th…

>substantial advertising market [...] thriving advertising industry, [...] Whenever I see that "newspapers were always ad supported", I take it to mean the mainstream press and not the early financial papers that went to subscribers on Wall Street or the political news that was paid for by wealthy patrons. (Mainstream == readership of working class people.) The "penny press" in the 1830s[1] is an example of lowering…

Post by zzzcpan » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

Gys wrote: post #125

zzzcpan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they will only switch if something else offers a clear higher value No, that's not how it works. Sure, perceived value is important, but that's not where it starts. For people to switch to something else they need to find out about it first, and to find out about it somebody has to promote it to them. And how do you get people to promote it? You need an incentive, you need to find some way to make it worth for peop…

> For people to switch to something else they need to find out about it first, and to find out about it somebody has to promote it to them The perceived higher value itself is the incentive that will make people tell other people about it. People like to share things they really like or dislike. It gives them something to talk about ;-)