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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?

#141

Post by chippy »

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…

I think that's the aim, not the failure of this plan.

The key difference is that instead of companies storing, owning and exploiting your data, the user maintains their own data store and companies can then access and exploit it.

It's decentralised in the way where the data lives and is controlled by, not in how or where the data is used.

There is the problem where companies could continue to use your data when you no longer let them access to your data store - but that in effect is at worse unethical and at best not legal these days.

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

#142

Post by dustingetz »

codingdave wrote: post #6
dustingetz wrote: post #2

Can anyone name one for-profit company that wants to build software on Solid?

Why does it have to be a for-profit company?

you’re right, it’s a good question. my instinct is that markets get to the truth about what people need or want sufficiently to pay for. there’s a lot of virtue signaling and lip flapping bs to cut through in the dweb space.

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

#143

Post by dustingetz »

kromem wrote: post #8
dustingetz wrote: post #2

Can anyone name one for-profit company that wants to build software on Solid?

It's not like the early Internet was a haven of for profit companies in the early days. Early on most of the profit was in providing the access, not the content.

there doesn’t need to be a haven, i only asked for the name of a single entity!

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

#144

Post by r3bl »

yurishimo wrote: post #134
tomcooks wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? How would that have that effect?

I'm no expert, but from what I've heard, site owners can be held liable for hosting copyrighted material now. If you're running a site with lots of user generated content, it could be difficult to distinguish what is 100% user made vs copied from somewhere else. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You are absolutely correct. This law could have such effect.

More realistically, this is a problem that has no easy technical solution that originates from a law that still isn't adopted.

If I were an owner of such platform, I wouldn't worry too much about it now. In a year... maybe.

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

#145

Post by basch »

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…

Ive said the same thing before about not just facebook, but google/microsoft owning email, uber/lyft owning taxi, yelp/tripadvisor owning restaurant reviews.

Absolutely nobody actually seems to care about decentralized databases and networks feeding compatible clients info. Every user interface is made by the people holding the data in a walled garden.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17536381

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

#146

Post by pjmlp »

baq wrote: post #137
pjmlp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because commercial UNIX companies decided it was cheaper to commoditize UNIX on their hardware than keeping on investing on their own. Linux would hardly be where it is without the help of Intel, IBM, HP, SGI, Hollywood studios, ...

completely agree. i'm just saying it mostly isn't found on the desktop, neither on the iphone and you could argue neither really on android, so not in places where 'normal people' look. these people don't look at the backend so developers are free to pick whatever they want - Linux, Windows, unikernels, it doesn't matter for the end user.

Which is also one of the reasons why GNU/Linux failed as desktop OS.

The lack of focus on UI/UX and a full stack experience for frontend developers (native/web).

Hence why Android and ChromeOS succeed at it, while hiding what kernel they run on.

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

#147

Post by Juliate »

uncle_phil wrote: post #128
kopo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are lazy and don't care. It's why we are now in a world where either Google or Apple have access to pretty much every piece of data that every person on the planet produces or consumes. The Google Problem in particular is spawned by people wanting free or cheap stuff at any cost. It will take more than a few hundred people to change this now. It's too entrenched.

Yes they/we are. And more over, they are unaware and/or uneducated.

So were they before when literacy and education was limited to nobility and clergy (probably not so much per design, but per means and imagination and interest). And so couldn't understand WHAT general people literacy and education could bring to society as a whole and for every one.

It's not a matter of guilt or lazyness. Things take time to enter the mind of one person, even more so the mind of societies.

An educational/technological advantage is not always but often a winning one.

And that is not an excuse.

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

#148

Post by MaxBarraclough »

basch wrote: post #145
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…

Ive said the same thing before about not just facebook, but google/microsoft owning email, uber/lyft owning taxi, yelp/tripadvisor owning restaurant reviews. Absolutely nobody actually seems to care about decentralized databases and networks feeding compatible clients info. Every user interface is made by the people holding the data in a walled garden. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17536381

Heard of the IndieWeb guys? https://indieweb.org/

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

#149

Post by MaxBarraclough »

r3bl wrote: post #144
yurishimo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but from what I've heard, site owners can be held liable for hosting copyrighted material now. If you're running a site with lots of user generated content, it could be difficult to distinguish what is 100% user made vs copied from somewhere else. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You are absolutely correct. This law could have such effect. More realistically, this is a problem that has no easy technical solution that originates from a law that still isn't adopted. If I were an owner of such platform, I wouldn't worry too much about it now. In a year... maybe.

Even more realistically: is there any reason to assume any of this stuff will ever be enforced, let alone enforced against obscure forums?

Here in the UK, these sorts of laws have had, as far as I know, zero enforcement.

http://nocookielaw.com/ https://silktide.com/the-stupid-cookie-law-is-dead-at-last/ https://silktide.com/dear-ico-this-is-why-web-developers-hat...

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

#150

Post by taeric »

solarkraft wrote: post #83
taeric wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is reversing causality. Developers flock to the platform that is succeeding. This is true of most things. Applicants flock to the industry that is hiring the most. It would be nice if the industry hiring the most was the most worthy, but that is doubtful. Consider mining communities.

Of course it's both. But I think (independent) developers are much more likely to publish for a platform they think is fun to develop for.

And in this we just disagree. I assert people independently develop where they can. If they have the means, they develop where they can make money.
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