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How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

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Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#31

Post by mmt »

paulddraper wrote: post #19
tareqak wrote: post #4

Given the tendency for wealth and power to concentrate, is it possible to design a competitive, and efficient system where all the actors are sufficiently prosperous without the formation of any monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies? Edit: a follow-up thought. If the answer is no or "it's too hard", then is it possible have something along the same lines, is it possible for the proposed system to self-correct away from mo…

> is it possible See "Economies of Scale" [1] To the degree that efficiency is increased with larger scale, the market will become an oligopoly or monopoly. Most things are economies of scale: healthcare, social networks, manufacturing, network protocols. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

Volunteer (distributed) computing projects demonstrate that even scale can be decentralized.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#32

Post by zrm »

paulddraper wrote: post #19
tareqak wrote: post #4

Given the tendency for wealth and power to concentrate, is it possible to design a competitive, and efficient system where all the actors are sufficiently prosperous without the formation of any monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies? Edit: a follow-up thought. If the answer is no or "it's too hard", then is it possible have something along the same lines, is it possible for the proposed system to self-correct away from mo…

> is it possible See "Economies of Scale" [1] To the degree that efficiency is increased with larger scale, the market will become an oligopoly or monopoly. Most things are economies of scale: healthcare, social networks, manufacturing, network protocols. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

Most network protocols like TCP/IP are royalty-free open standards. They have a monopoly in the sense that IPX et al are dead and gone, but that's not the same thing as having a single company in control of them.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#33

Post by gnfurlong »

debacle wrote: post #7

Isn't this plan the same as the last plan (the name of which I can't even remember - app something. There was a kickstarter), just with Tim Berners-Lee's name attached to it? My main concern is that this project is DOA for the same reason that the last few have been - too much of an academic focus tending towards navel-gazing, not enough network effect to draw hobbyists, and zero money to attract businesses. The PDS…

Node-solid-server is just one implementation of the spec. There's nothing stopping another implementation from having a cpanel like management interface.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#34

Post by jonahx »

tareqak wrote: post #4

Given the tendency for wealth and power to concentrate, is it possible to design a competitive, and efficient system where all the actors are sufficiently prosperous without the formation of any monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies? Edit: a follow-up thought. If the answer is no or "it's too hard", then is it possible have something along the same lines, is it possible for the proposed system to self-correct away from mo…

Price's Law says no:

> 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.

https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#35

Post by mmt »

dustingetz wrote: post #24
TACIXAT wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a great mark of success early on.

I've been reading about solid for three years now and there's nothing. In 1992, the Web was doubling every 3-4 months according to Weaving the Web by Tim Berners Lee page 66 which I happen to have sitting on my desk. Mosaic was founded in '93 and Netscape in '94. Solid has nothing.

> Mosaic was founded in '93 and Netscape in '94

Only Netscape is a for-profit company, and it took 3 years of the Web existing to be founded.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#36

Post by gibsonf1 »

wmf wrote: post #29
gibsonf1 wrote: post #17

It seems the author is missing the point in advocating big government solutions and government regulation to somehow fix the privacy problem. Imagine if you owned and controlled all your email vs. gmail reading it all? For companies, owning their proprietary data is an enormous market. I'm planning to launch a Solid service on top of Allegrograph in the next month or two to service my business customers.

I don't think they're missing anything. The article mentions that even though you "own" your data in Solid, companies will still cajole you into "consenting" for them to data-mine it.

For the email example, people will have a choice of paying a small amount for a cross-platform private/encrypted UX service, or free by allowing a company to read and datamine all of their email. I'm guessing a surprising number of people will pay a small amount for privacy given how badly things are going in the silos today.

And that UX service can easily import a users entire email history from google and others, and then use the graph to expose relationships and browsing not currently available in google and other services.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#37

Post by fjsolwmv »

tangue wrote: post #28
zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

While I understand this point, there are other things than the technical aspects, the Diaspora precedent is a cautious tale of why not to chose this approach : It will attract the most toxic people of our communities.

The popular communities (Twitter. Reddit, Youtube, email spam) are already toxic. The solution to that is good UX this puts users in control of which content is put in their face.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#38

Post by PaulHoule »

egonschiele wrote: post #20
zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

> the platform that developers want to support is the one that wins. This is very hard to believe. Developers hate apple, facebook, and countless other platforms that are doing very well. Adoption is the fundamental problem, not what developers want to support. The platform with the most users is what people will develop for.

If developers hate Apple then why do they buy macs?

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#39

Post by gibsonf1 »

gnfurlong wrote: post #33
debacle wrote: post #7

Isn't this plan the same as the last plan (the name of which I can't even remember - app something. There was a kickstarter), just with Tim Berners-Lee's name attached to it? My main concern is that this project is DOA for the same reason that the last few have been - too much of an academic focus tending towards navel-gazing, not enough network effect to draw hobbyists, and zero money to attract businesses. The PDS…

Node-solid-server is just one implementation of the spec. There's nothing stopping another implementation from having a cpanel like management interface.

I'm going with SBCL Lisp and Allegrograph and Caveman. Anyone interested in teaming up on the Solid Lisp library? cl-solid

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#40

Post by Aunche »

egonschiele wrote: post #20
zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

> the platform that developers want to support is the one that wins. This is very hard to believe. Developers hate apple, facebook, and countless other platforms that are doing very well. Adoption is the fundamental problem, not what developers want to support. The platform with the most users is what people will develop for.

Developers love Apple. They don't have to worry whether their apps will work on a million different Android devices.
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