How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

zsck wrote: post #53

egonschiele wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is pretty clearly not the case. Apple and Facebook are companies, not platforms. The platforms these companies develop are wildly successful and loved by developers. I think you may be too focused on how developers decide a platform that is already successful. In that case, yes, which one is already adopted the most deserves strong consideration. However, when it comes to actually achieving adoption, it’s the pl…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by baq » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:42 AM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #62

johncolanduoni wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, when it comes to actually achieving adoption, it’s the platform that developers flock to that tend to succeed, all else being equal. Perhaps, but I struggle to think of two comparable platforms with similar user adoption and significantly different developer interest, outside of there being different sets of developers that hate/love each (c.f. iOS and Android). I'm definitely not aware of any examples ind…

Arguably, Linux owning the back end development space so completely is due to developer preference. But I think you do have a point. It's not just developer preference, there are other big factors like feature offered and ease of entry that determine likelihood of success.

> Arguably, Linux owning the back end development space so completely is due to developer preference.

and why is that possible? it's because the backend is decoupled from where the users are.

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

#113

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:49 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #87

The man deserves credit of course for helping create the first browsers and promoting the early web and his work for W3C. However, Tim's track record is not great when it comes to backing new versions of the web. E.g. Semantic Web never happened and arguably this is his latest attempt at flogging that dead horse. So, my prediction is that this won't get very far. It seems the website is a bit hand-wavy on the actual…

"Mostly that never happens. "

Might be because there are no decentralized competitors to facebook, who offer the same possibilities bugfree. Never seen that.

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

#114

Post by Dowwie » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

These projects could seriously backfire in unanticipated ways. There are a lot of important matters to explore in this space by law and philosophy wonks. I think that Solid and the other emerging platforms are more likely to create new revenue streams for those already in the business of selling PII than helping individuals protect and manage their PII.

If each of us can control personal information about ourselves, the Supreme Court may rule in favor of this information as property. The problem is that this is not a realistic scenario. Most of our personal information involves parties other than ourselves. Counterparties can rightfully stake a claim to information they helped to create. Why wouldn't they? There is no clear breach of ethics by doing so.

So, let's assume the world adopts Solid pods to manage this data. Is each pod really a single source of truth? Any pod organized by an individual could just as easily be created by a counterparty, with some modification.

Then, suppose a marketplace exists for this information. Who is dedicating effort to monetizing their pods? How will individuals, who work for a living, compete with organizations mandated to maximize pod revenue? Both have legal claims.

My prediction is that contrary to what Lee, Pentland [2], Mazzucato [3] and others envision, Solid and its growing number of equivalents will spawn a new generation of business models and go even further than they do now, by introducing financial products linked to monetization. The main beneficiaries are those already monetizing personal information and those who will securitize them.

[1] https://enigma.co/ [2]https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611489/lets-make-private-...

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

#115

Post by fjsolwmv » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:19 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #15

Kostchei wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about avoiding marketing. It's about ownership and control. If I want my stuff to be analysed- I let that happen- it finds business or social matches- awesome. I just need the option to turn that off for things I don't want greped- like banking. I too am in favor of paid for services. Because that is what happens eventually. You pay for it. I'd rather make a decision and choose who I pay, as opposed to havin…

I would love to 'own' all my data. But companies offering services will win out because they do not have to play nice with you or your data store. Take Gmail, Facebook or Google docs as examples. In principle that's your data. But Gmail has successfully convinced people that Google is able to run its mail service better than you or your corporation ever could. In return for 'reading your mail', and vast amounts of co…

What is going to prevent everyone on Solid from getting constantly hacked by 0-day bugs and all their data read?

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

#116

Post by kopo » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:20 AM UTC

Juliate wrote: post #107

yason wrote: post #102

People are lazy and don't care. They're happy to let Facebook host and own their data if they can comment and like friends' videos for that. That's basically fine. From what I can learn from the history the web has mostly been centralised and will continue to be so. To think, all business domains tend to converge into few large companies/services, and finally into duopolies and monopolies if left to their own devices…

"People are lazy and don't care. They're happy to let the King and nobles be educated, decide, rule them and govern the country." could have said many 3 centuries ago. Cue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association . "Because freedom of association necessarily recognizes pluralistic sources of power and organisation, aside from the government, it has been a primary target for repression by all dictatorial s…

Well put. All the regulation and change Ralph Nader and co managed to make happen didn't take more than a few hundred motivated people - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWxc_kYmPTE

People are "lazy and don't care" is dialogue you hear from people who don't have the experience of getting things done.

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

#117

Post by fjsolwmv » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:21 AM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #71

egonschiele wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’m not sure I follow developers hating Apple when 99% of the engineers I see use an apple laptop. As to facebook, we’ll see if it survives. There’s not much to use it for aside from advertising as a platform, and I’ve heard nothing but negatives about return on ads.

Plenty of people hate things they are stuck with for lack of usable alternatives

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

#118

Post by mattlondon » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:23 AM UTC

gibsonf1 wrote: post #25

PhilWright wrote: post #23

The problem with your personal data store is that it will be impossible to stop the large companies like Google/Facebook from simply copying and caching a copy of all the data they need to access. You give them permission to handle your email and calendar information and bingo, they have a copy of your entire set of emails and appointments. If you use multiple services from Google/Facebook then they will end up with…

On the other hand, what would stop the rise of email UX companies that provide a PAID service that links to your email with the explicit promise of never caching it? They wouldn't need to mine it to make money as google does, as they are being paid, even though the per user cost payment could be quite low to support a profitable email UX company.

Google does not mine/scan gmail emails for advertising purposes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/23/google-wont-scan-your-gm... https://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-reading-personal-emai...

Many more sourcews just a short duckduckgo search away.

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

#119

Post by fjsolwmv » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:23 AM UTC

tuesdayrain wrote: post #89

egonschiele wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I can't imagine hating Facebook as a developer. Just because some people hand over their personal information to them? I'll gladly overlook that when they gave me things like React, React Native. GraphQL, Jest, Flow.

You can't imagine that some people find a few fad frameworks not appealing enough to overlook hijacking the world's social relationships?

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

#120

Post by miguelmota » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:25 AM UTC

The average person prefers convenience over decentralization because ‘it just works’. Decentralized services right now are slower and harder to use so I don’t see it take off until the usability and performance becomes just as comparable to centralized services