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

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

#161

Post by paulddraper » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

zrm wrote: post #32

paulddraper wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In terms of economic capitalism yes, but more abstractly "market share" goes to a select few winners: ARP, IP, TCP, and HTTP.

Because things are easier when devices use the same protocols as many other devices.

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

#162

Post by nybble41 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

s17n wrote: post #160

VBprogrammer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Copyright Directive may have that effect though.

GDPR is worse, actually. Both laws are making site owners liable for hosting certain types of content (personal information and copyrighted materials, respectively). However automatically detecting copyrighted materials is relatively straightforward compared but automatically detecting personal information is probably impossible.

> However automatically detecting copyrighted materials is relatively straightforward

Sure, that's easy: everything is copyrighted. The difficult part is determining whether the uploader can legally share the copyrighted material, which is just as likely to prove impossible to automate with accuracy and precision as the detection of personal information.

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

#163

Post by rmkoek » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

I'm still not sold on this idea. I ask why help John/Jan Doe Net Shopper protect their data? If Net Shopper X is that concerned about said issue a little research and implementation a Net Shopper X can privately and securely shop. However my constituents feel it's our obligation to use our skills and knowledge to help Net Shopper X because they are to stupid to do it themselves. Like a Shepard needs to protect the sheep from the wolves. So at this time its still just conversions rather then actions in my circle.

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

#164

Post by ABCLAW » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

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.

People aren't lazy and don't care.

People are busy and have other priorities and don't see meaningful gains for investing time and effort in opposing the endless torrent of technofeudalism washing over them.

Trying to moralize a co-ordination issue is great way to shift the responsibility for bad things occurring from those doing it to those who failed to resist it.

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

#165

Post by drasticmeasures » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

xtf wrote: post #84

I would be happier in a decentralized network staying connected with other sheeple and have my own options of sharing information. This is an attempt to doom it before it was even tried.

Facebook / gov can import all your data from Solid, rendering your options of who to share info with a cruel illusion.

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

#166

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:37 AM UTC

ElBarto wrote: post #95

In my view Solid is trying to provide a technical solution to a problem that isn't technical. The internet and web are already decentralised technical solutions. But self-hosting is not a feasible solution for people and network effects mean that they'll gravitate to a few platforms. That's simply the way it is. Google, Facebook, etc. naturally emerged and similar near-monopolies will emerge with any other technology…

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by henryluo » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

Yes, Solid is something to looking forward to.

Many years ago, we face the vendor lock-in problem from the software giants, due to proprietary data formats. Thanks to Tim, W3C, XML and open source community, that is less of a problem today.

But now we face the problem of vendor lock-in, not due to proprietary formats, but due to cloud-service lock-in. With all the software giants, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, ... offering their services primarily as cloud services, this cloud lock-in issue is going to become more severe in years to come.

It's a new war the software industry needs to fight. It cannot be addressed just by one person, one project, one organization. It needs collaboration from the entire community.

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

#168

Post by rikkus » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC

tpxl wrote: post #139

arcbyte wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explicitly no. Though practically that seems to be the effect.

How so? All you have to do is not collect personal data, which is easy.

I don’t run any forums at the moment, but when I did, the software I used gave users massive opportunity to provide information about themselves. Some users loved this and filled in every field, perhaps because they enjoyed that it made socialising easier.

The problem for anyone wanting to host a forum is that using off-the-shelf software is a sensible route, but the available software might still be leaning towards offering to collect data like this, might not yet have support for GDPR disclaimers, checkboxes, etc.

What I’m saying is let’s assume neither malice nor incompetence and instead that those wishing to host forums may be hamstrung by the available software.

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

#169

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

ghinda wrote: post #78

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…

CouchApps had a better vision for the web. You would run a local CouchDB and replicate the app next to your data, rather then giving the app access to your data while hosted somewhere else. It has the added benefit of working offline. Some sort of cross-domain request blocking could then prevent the app from stealing your data.

Thanks for mentioning CouchApps (based on CouchDB, or the scalable BigCouch). I haven’t thought about CouchDB as a platform for a long time, but it does hit a sweet spot for local data, distributed replication. Seems like a good basis for a Decentralized Web on a small scale where you share with a small number of people.

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

#170

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

drngdds wrote: post #125

croisillon wrote: post #76

"redecentralize founder" writing a post on medium.com, oh the irony

It's like everyone forgot you can host your own blog

It drives me nuts when friends and associates write long form content on other people’s/organization’s platforms.

The purpose of FaceBook, Twitter, Google+, etc. should be as a place to put a link to your content in your own domain.