A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

Post by type0 » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 12:53 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #131

aninhumer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The two decentralized protocols with the most adoption by far are Bitcoin and BitTorrent. What about email? It's become quite centralised in practice, but it is ultimately a decentralised protocol, and it is used by pretty much everyone on the internet. And even in its semi-centralised form, it's nowhere near the walled garden of Facebook.

> What about email? That's a really good idea! Email is an good existing source of messaging and "identity." People can choose to participate in the "network" either using one of the big hosted providers, a privacy-oriented email host, and eventually over time, using self-hosted email. Project idea: what if all the social shit could be sent over email? You'd need to setup your email client to hide emails that represe…

Post by golemotron » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #140

zer0gravity wrote: post #116

So nobody can "give the power back" to anybody, but people can stop giving their power away to others. We all have power, and we manifest it through our actions and choices. Some say knowledge is power, but in order to gain knowledge you have to make that choice. One can try to educate people about the benefits of hosting their own data, but unless they make the choice to listen and understand it's all for nothing. I…

The "People don't understand" is a condescending statement and is exactly the reason why the people who try to build these decentralized systems never succeed, because they don't even understand why people use information silos. If you really think that's the problem and you think you know better than other people, you should quit using every single centralized system out there, like your bank (they take your money a…

Post by inimino » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #200

The problem with this plan is that it doesn't really tackle the first rule of the Internet: spam and abuse make everything suck. The last really popular decentralized service was email, and users migrated to large providers because they had better spam filters. Also, setting up your own mail server has become increasingly difficult, due in part to anti-spam measures. As a side effect, email has become pretty lossy. C…

Post by Crespyl » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #297

fredsir wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many rely on Github for more than source control hosting and issues. It's really not a non-issue.

Care to elaborate ?

Post by vorotato » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #310

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I am speaking from my own browsing experience on the now-dead silkroad. Second, I'm not trying to disagree with you at all. It was to point out that there are definitely use cases for decentralized technologies where centralized systems can't go (although a lot have been negative so far)

I know you are not trying to disagree -- and if you were, that would also be fine, of course :) Mine was not a rhetorical question. People keep mentioning assassination markets but it always sounds like a urban myth to me. I would like to know if there are documented cases or not. Just because you see an advertisement on something like silk road, doesn't mean that it's not some kid playing pretend.