Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

ruben.verborgh.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 295 posts

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#11

Post by wmf »

kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

Try Sandstorm.

Home servers are a very difficult sell (see $500 Helm) compared to VMs running in a data center and IMO the privacy difference is mostly illusory.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#12

Post by brachi »

wmf wrote: post #11
kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

Try Sandstorm. Home servers are a very difficult sell (see $500 Helm) compared to VMs running in a data center and IMO the privacy difference is mostly illusory.

Could ellaborate why is illusory?

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#13

Post by kodablah »

wmf wrote: post #11
kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

Try Sandstorm. Home servers are a very difficult sell (see $500 Helm) compared to VMs running in a data center and IMO the privacy difference is mostly illusory.

/me goes to sandstorm.io, click install, skip past the paid version on to self-host, see it only works on Linux, close tab

^ That is your expected reaction by normal desktop users. I mean literally download an exe and up pops up your feed ready to add your friends, or favorite businesses, news sites, link aggregators, etc given their onion ID (yes, onion ID is annoyingly large, especially v3, but discovery/identity comes later, don't let it hold up the system).

I'm not convinced you need a "home server" in the traditional sense. Just accept what you lose, uptime, if you use your laptop or phone to do the hosting. You can share between them too given a synced private key which is the software's job, not the user's. Still, an ephemeral self-hosted-on-desktop social network can go a long way (and again, people will let the need for uptime drive their always-on desktop decision). This stuff requires such little resources to start, a cheap Raspi w/ a install/reach-from-other-device would work just fine if they don't have a home computer and want one just for this. Large storage can come later.

I do agree the privacy difference is minimal.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#14

Post by wmf »

brachi wrote: post #12
wmf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Sandstorm. Home servers are a very difficult sell (see $500 Helm) compared to VMs running in a data center and IMO the privacy difference is mostly illusory.

Could ellaborate why is illusory?

Data centers and (paid) cloud vendors don't look at your data and the police can get into your home as easily as your VM.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#16

Post by bennofs »

kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

I've found secure scuttlebutt (www.scuttlebutt.nz) really impressive. By using public servers called pubs as meeting point they can ignore lots of issues like NAT punching and discovery. I don't like that it seems to be based on an immutable log but it showcases well how much is possible with offline first, sync when possible software (just like syncthing)

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#17

Post by zozbot123 »

wmf wrote: post #14
brachi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could ellaborate why is illusory?

Data centers and (paid) cloud vendors don't look at your data and the police can get into your home as easily as your VM.

Nope, they can't. There are reasonably-strong legal protections against police entering your home, because it's the main place where you actually have a legally-acknowledged expectation of privacy.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#18

Post by dboreham »

zozbot123 wrote: post #17
wmf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers and (paid) cloud vendors don't look at your data and the police can get into your home as easily as your VM.

Nope, they can't. There are reasonably-strong legal protections against police entering your home, because it's the main place where you actually have a legally-acknowledged expectation of privacy.

Hence “But her emails...”

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#19

Post by amelius »

kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

One problem is still asymmetric upload/download speeds for many (most) home connections.

Often upload is 10x slower than download.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#20

Post by sliken »

kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

Back when mobile devices were rare, skype used p2p and was very popular and novel. But then an increasing percentage of nodes were mobile with limited power, limited bandwidth, and much less storage. Even being a member of a DHT (a nice way for distributed peers to keep track of each other) is a prohibitive from a battery life and bandwidth perspective for phones.

So Microsoft moved skype to a centralized service and have been trying to monetize it since.

The problem with decentralized servers isn't technical, something half as fast as your phone could easily handle distributed versions of popular websites. The arm based "wall warts" were plenty fast, and they are several generations old already.

How could decentralized applications/services be sustainable funded? If not advertising, how? If it is advertising, what's the benefit to users?

Most importantly, why would users care about decentralized vs centralized?

It does seem that a modest arm based server that's silent, potentially integrated into a wifi router would hugely reduce the downsides of p2p networks. Free power, cheap bandwidth, and being part of a p2p network they would avoid long startup times for applications. Users on their phones would get instant access to their data while their local node did any proof of work, DHT tracking, earning the reputation necessary to use bandwidth, cpu, and storage from other peers.

I don't see any technical barriers, just that users wouldn't care, and nobody would want to pay for it.

Post reply on HN