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Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

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Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #59
TeMPOraL wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that the other side knows they're talking with (and maybe talking about, or sending resources to) a real human being who actually is a rural African kid, and not with a server farm of some sleazy US advertiser who autogenerated a fake profile.

Now, that is mixing up a whole lot of different problems, isn't it? First of all, "proving that this human being exists" in no way implies "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa". Let alone "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa who lacks resources". Now, those absolutely might be legitimate concerns in some scenarios--but how would that be a baseline requirement for a system for soc…

> Last I checked I don't need to bring a credit report to get into a local pub and chat with people either.

But you see those people, with your own eyes, and thus know they exist. Maybe in 50 years we'll have robots indistinguishable from humans, and the question of proof will become relevant for in-pub interactions. For now, the question is relevant only for long-distance communications.

> How is trusting one centralized, not democratically controlled institution to take care of the problem even a solution? If you rely on them, you implicitly also give them the power to effectively declare real people non-existent.

True. But so is the case with a democratic government, and so is the case with any other organization or system. And the power to declare people non-existent is exercised frequently, often by mere bureaucratic accident. Ultimately, trust is a spectrum. No organization is worth 100% trust, but also no one is worth 0% trust. I don't e.g. particularly trust Facebook, but I trust the social web - if I have a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is a friend of the rural kid in Africa, I can with high confidence assume the rural kid in Africa exists[0].

So yeah, in my previous comment I mixed up a few different use cases. But I think in pretty much all of them you want to at least know the other person is a human being, and frequently you also want to know they are who they say they are.

--

[0] - This effect is actually sabotaged by the pro-privacy efforts to hide as much information about people as possible, rendering users unable to follow the social web chains beyond their own direct connections. Privacy is important, but it's always a trade-off, sometimes trading off genuinely useful things.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#72

Post by lazyjones »

edhelas wrote: post #31

Decentralized social networks aren't working for now because they reinvent their own protocol each time which creates fragmentation and incompatibilities between the platforms. I think that decentralized social network projects should relies on existing standards and help with their development. That's why I'm working on Movim ( https://movim.eu/ ) for several years now, which is fully based on XMPP and is de facto c…

> Decentralized social networks aren't working for now because they reinvent their own protocol each time

nope...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#73

Post by Kiro »

cetra3 wrote: post #44
Kiro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can spin up a node or use a wallet to create an account directly on the Steem blockchain instead of doing it through the Steemit webpage.

If that's an option I haven't found it from a quick glance on the website. I just followed what was there without looking too deeply into it. Maybe if that's something you can do, there should be a clear process written up somewhere

Steemit is not aimed at advanced users. Most probably don't even know that it's powered by a blockchain other than on a buzzword level.

There are plenty of guides how to work with the Steem blockchain directly posted as blog posts on the blockchain itself. :)

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#74

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, that is mixing up a whole lot of different problems, isn't it? First of all, "proving that this human being exists" in no way implies "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa". Let alone "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa who lacks resources". Now, those absolutely might be legitimate concerns in some scenarios--but how would that be a baseline requirement for a system for soc…

> Last I checked I don't need to bring a credit report to get into a local pub and chat with people either. But you see those people, with your own eyes, and thus know they exist. Maybe in 50 years we'll have robots indistinguishable from humans, and the question of proof will become relevant for in-pub interactions. For now, the question is relevant only for long-distance communications. > How is trusting one centra…

> But you see those people, with your own eyes, and thus know they exist.

But I still don't see their credit report. I could still fall for someone fraudulently claiming to be poor.

> I don't e.g. particularly trust Facebook, but I trust the social web - if I have a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is a friend of the rural kid in Africa, I can with high confidence assume the rural kid in Africa exists[0].

Well, first of all, if you receive that information from facebook, then you necessarily need to trust facebook first before you can even start with that investigation.

But also: Do you trust facebook to not misrepresent the non-existence of that rural kid in Africa? Is that trust warranted?

> But I think in pretty much all of them you want to at least know the other person is a human being, and frequently you also want to know they are who they say they are.

You don't really expect to accidentally become friends with a bot quite yet, do you? Just because it's difficult for machines sometimes to detect bots, doesn't mean that is really a major problem for closer social connections. Also, what does "know they are who they say they are" even mean? You say you are TeMPOraL, and I am pretty sure you are TeMPOraL, what more is there to "know you are who you say you are" that could be improved by "identity checks" on the part of a "social network"?

> This effect is actually sabotaged by the pro-privacy efforts to hide as much information about people as possible, rendering users unable to follow the social web chains beyond their own direct connections. Privacy is important, but it's always a trade-off, sometimes trading off genuinely useful things.

Which is why every privacy advocate is for individual control. Privacy is not about forcing you to be paranoid, but about giving you the control over your data. There is nothing wrong with you being able to prove your identity to a peer that you want to prove your identity to, say. The problem is when you are forced to prove your identity no matter the need for the actual social interaction.l

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#75

Post by Kiro »

mannigfaltig wrote: post #29
codewithcheese wrote: post #3

What short sighted click bait. Steem has already solved or partially solved most of these problems and we haven't even scratched the service. Read the Steem white paper [1] if you want your mind blown. [1] https://steem.io

What are the key reasons someone should go to Steem rather than to some existing social platform? Steem will likely be slower and the barriers to contribute will likely be higher. Secondly, do you think it is a good basis for building communities if everything is associated with monetary rewards? Sites like Reddit are exactly enjoyable because, most of the time, reward is only imaginary, just like in real-world gathe…

I need to be honest, for me it was definitely the fact that you can earn money for just writing blog posts and curating. Also that it's so transparent what people make, it really motivates you to post when you see someone earn thousands of dollars from one post.

I did however find out that the community is great, made many new friends and read a lot of interesting posts. Lately it looks like it has been kind of overrun with people from China or third-world countries, which is interesting, but sometimes the posts are not translated and the steemit.com site does a poor job of managing different languages.

I haven't been active on Steemit for more than a year but thinking of going back since I miss it. It's very consuming though, a lot more than Facebook. Since there's a monetary reward on everything you do it feels like "working" even when you're mindlessly upvoting stuff. I used to spend many hours a day just reading, jotting on a new blog post or connect with fellow steemians on the official chat server.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#76

Post by maufl »

I don't think it's a technical problem and I think the problems the articel points out are social and economic problems. I once started to design a protocol that could be used to build a decentralized social network. (FOSP https://github.com/maufl/fosp-specification) However, I now think that a peer-to-peer solution would be better, even if it is technically more challenging, as it would not require anybody to run a server and untilize the resources the users already pay for (storage, network connection).

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#77

Post by AndrewDucker »

gwenzek wrote: post #64
infinity0 wrote: post #43

I've never seen an actual well-thought out technical argument on why decentralised social networks can't work. That's because there isn't one. People who are familiar with the technical issues surrounding this are humble and don't make bogus over-generalised statements like "X can't work [ever, everywhere, in all contexts]". This article is not a well-thought out argument either. It's a bunch of random irrelevant ane…

> lack of funding on solving the hard problems in this field Also some of the hard problems like spam detections are only ads related. If you build a decentralized social network you don't face those

People will still send spam messages, "friend" you with spam profiles, etc.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#78

Post by sharemywin »

phkahler wrote: post #61
nstart wrote: post #21

Just in case any bright eyed hopeful person is reading this, please don't think "ah shucks" and go away. Some of the biggest things in the internet including the protocols the internet lives on were never envisioned as something that would change the life of billions of people. They were initially created to solve a problem for a small group and then grew into something much bigger over time. Please please don't back…

I have given some thought to this problem and I think it's technically solvable. The main problem is that it would be non-profit so less incentive to build it. Anyone want to kick around ideas?

or you could go after the money side of the equation.

1. let sponsors host your data in an open competitive marketplace.

or

an open marketplace for goods and services that focuses exclusively on driving value to customers through:

1. require low cost guarantee from vendors.

2. vendor can't buy rank at all.

3. better way to find products and service.

(sort of like ebay that focuses on customer value not transaction volume)

do what amazon did to "best buy". you do alot of your research everywhere else but you buy from here.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#79

Post by phkahler »

sharemywin wrote: post #78
phkahler wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given some thought to this problem and I think it's technically solvable. The main problem is that it would be non-profit so less incentive to build it. Anyone want to kick around ideas?

or you could go after the money side of the equation. 1. let sponsors host your data in an open competitive marketplace. or an open marketplace for goods and services that focuses exclusively on driving value to customers through: 1. require low cost guarantee from vendors. 2. vendor can't buy rank at all. 3. better way to find products and service. (sort of like ebay that focuses on customer value not transaction vo…

What does any of that have to do with a social network? I've got other ideas for commercial ventures, this thread is about the idea of a decentralized social network. In other words, separating the social from the commercial.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#80

Post by mattl »

nippples wrote: post #5

GNU Social is low traffic, but it's alive and well.

And GNU social and Mastodon are two different projects that speak OStatus. I'm pleased to see Mastodon's success, and while I'm basically done with GNU these days, I hope to see the two projects continue to cooperate on the OStatus network.
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