51–60 of 146 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"A lot" of people also think the world is flat. Not really.
More people believe the world is flat than know what a "decentralized social network" is.
What's your point?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"A lot" of people also think the world is flat. Not really.
More people believe the world is flat than know what a "decentralized social network" is.
Quote:
> I would say 90% or more of Facebook users couldn't care less if their data is sold to advertisers.
So, changing goalposts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Email is a decentralized system.
Its design intended it to be used that way, but that's not how people use it. Everyone uses a centralized email provider now (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.), and these providers act as gatekeepers to email. If they disappear, people will find an alternative centralized messaging scheme, not start learning how to run their own mail servers...
Mostly everyone, but not everyone.
Decentralized systems can only take off if they are built around standardized protocols - this is why email works. The choice of smtp servers to run, email clients to choose from, that's what's making it resilient.
Ideas like ActivityPub, webmentions, microsub, micropub, while not strictly protocols - all on top of HTTP - could allow us to build real decentralisation, with the weapon of choice on platform, language, client - this is what's truly needed.
Most of the platforms like Diaspora, Friendica, Mastodon, can, could, or already have adopted some of these, thus making a good step towards true federation, when anything can talk to anything.
EDIT ... but the emphasis right now should be on the glue, the protocols connecting them, not just only the software implementing it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"A lot" of people also think the world is flat. Not really.
More people believe the world is flat than know what a "decentralized social network" is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its design intended it to be used that way, but that's not how people use it. Everyone uses a centralized email provider now (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.), and these providers act as gatekeepers to email. If they disappear, people will find an alternative centralized messaging scheme, not start learning how to run their own mail servers...
Sorry, it is still decentralized. - Even if it were true that "everyone uses Google/Microsoft/Apple/etc", the ones that don't can still send/receive emails from everyone else. - If one of the of the big providers disappear, the system as a whole will continue to function.
As for the few that do have the capacity to setup a mail server, they would only be able to message others that also have the capacity to setup a mail server (again we're assuming no centralized providers and thus no delegation of this task to a trusted party). So maybe the system would still work for this niche group... but then we get into the bigger question: are there entities today that control the Internet and do they have the capacity to shut down systems like email? Tor?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like e-mail or the web, perhaps?
Exactly like email or the web. Certain services (shame on you, booking.com) now consider it a potential bug if you email doesn't end in gmail.com (they do their "did you mean: tadzik_@gmail.com?" when I enter the proper one, with my own domain). The web itself also tends to gravitate towards either "cloud" providers or at least stuff like cloudfare for ddos protection. Yes, it is still decentralized, but people keep…
This is incredibly annoying, I agree, but having run a service for which people type their email addresses, and having seen just how many people can't actually type their own email address properly (currently running at about 5%) I'm not surprised that a service aimed at non-technical people puts in attempted safeguards like this.
And my service is for technical people - I can't imagine what it's like for genuinely open services.
This is yet another platform solution. The problem with platform solutions is that they still present one and only one choice of software. Decentralized systems can only take off if they are built around standardized protocols - this is why email works. The choice of smtp servers to run, email clients to choose from, that's what's making it resilient. Ideas like ActivityPub, webmentions, microsub, micropub, while not…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Email is a decentralized system.
Its design intended it to be used that way, but that's not how people use it. Everyone uses a centralized email provider now (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.), and these providers act as gatekeepers to email. If they disappear, people will find an alternative centralized messaging scheme, not start learning how to run their own mail servers...
No, it's not the case that "everyone" does that. I don't, and many of my colleagues don't. Perhaps muggles in general don't, and perhaps you're really only talking about such non-technical people, but your hyperbole undermines your argument.
And I'm getting really tired of those big services automatically classing as spam anything that comes from a different domain.