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The importance of decentralisation

ungleich.ch

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Re: The importance of decentralisation

#41

Post by telmich »

aloknnikhil wrote: post #25
telmich wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the challenge. Let me start by replying to your DMZ comment: with IPv6, you actually have to rethink and with it you can organise the Internet very different from today. I agree with you that people don't want to maintain complex systems. But then again, running a git server or even cgit, is a matter of little minutes spent, especially if you use ready to deploy toolchains. I also think you have a point in terms…

You're missing the point. Even if running a git server is easy, not everyone will bother to maintain it and setup a regular backup process. Also, where do you back that data up to? Some central server or DHT/BitTorrent. Inherently, AWS is popular because companies would rather pay to have someone deal with the headache of managing hardware and infrastructure. > Why do I need a website to write to you? I can write dir…

> Because I'm not always online and you might not be when I'm.

That's a good thing, because maybe I don't want to be able to reached all the time. If you want to, you can add your IPv6 address on your phone, which is virtually always online (I actually do this on my phone).

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#43

Post by telmich »

Darthy wrote: post #29
jasode wrote: post #16

It's sort of an ongoing hobby of mine to study the forces of decentralization vs centralization. This article about decentralization does what many other evangelism articles do: talk about the ideals and benefits . However, I believed what's rarely discussed but more important is the economic forces that prevent decentralization from fulfilling the idealists' vision. Yes, decentralization will be in effect for niche…

I don't think centralization automatically becomes the status quo. The reason why we have the current centralization of amazon, facebook, github etc is because the web as we are currently using it has centralization built in: A browser always connect to a fixed server. But that is not god-given, we created it that way 25 years ago, and we could allow additional other ways. A browser could instead also be connecting t…

Actually yacy goes this direction: https://yacy.net/

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#44

Post by kodablah »

telmich wrote: post #38
kodablah wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To purposely be provocative to spur discussion I will make a bold claim: Decentralization is an unstable equilibrium. It's the centralization that becomes the stable status quo. Spurred. Firstly, this ignores the variance between absolute decentralization and absolute centralization. By reducing the discussion to black and white, we can't recognize a middleground that may not be as decentralized as all-in-home yet…

I would say if you assume that markets don't regulate themselves to the best, the argument that users should not care, is not valid. Or put it the other way: if users don't care, they will be exposed to changes / forces they don't control nor want. I think this is very similar to political activity: if you don't vote, your life will be more influenced by the opinions of others. If you vote (care), then you can make a…

> the argument that users should not care, is not valid

I agree from the user's perspective. The point is nuanced but important - users should care, but the reality is they don't and from an implementer's perspective we should neither expect nor require them to. So to rephrase, I mean "users should not have to care in order to use the product".

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#45

Post by macspoofing »

jasode wrote: post #16

It's sort of an ongoing hobby of mine to study the forces of decentralization vs centralization. This article about decentralization does what many other evangelism articles do: talk about the ideals and benefits . However, I believed what's rarely discussed but more important is the economic forces that prevent decentralization from fulfilling the idealists' vision. Yes, decentralization will be in effect for niche…

>It's the centralization that becomes the stable status quo.

I wouldn't go as far as 'stable'. Centralization is very susceptible to entropy and therefore there needs to be a constant renewing/repairing force so that the structure does not collapse on itself.

Centralization is a big reason why Communist regimes fail after a few decades (even when they get big immediate gains)

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#46

Post by gfodor »

jasode wrote: post #16

It's sort of an ongoing hobby of mine to study the forces of decentralization vs centralization. This article about decentralization does what many other evangelism articles do: talk about the ideals and benefits . However, I believed what's rarely discussed but more important is the economic forces that prevent decentralization from fulfilling the idealists' vision. Yes, decentralization will be in effect for niche…

The layer of the stack matters somewhat. You can make it easy to get John to deploy git to AWS. If it's easy enough, cheap enough, and the software were as nice as GitHub, that'd be a reasonable counter-force to centralization. The ship has sailed in the example you mention, but for future categories of internet applications, enabling easy self-hosting seems like a solid aspect to a multi-pronged strategy towards preventing centralization of those platforms. (Incidentally, this is what we're doing with hubs.mozilla.com, enabling self hosting as a means of pre-empting the rush towards centralized avatar communication services)

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#47

Post by olah_1 »

telmich wrote: post #41
aloknnikhil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Even if running a git server is easy, not everyone will bother to maintain it and setup a regular backup process. Also, where do you back that data up to? Some central server or DHT/BitTorrent. Inherently, AWS is popular because companies would rather pay to have someone deal with the headache of managing hardware and infrastructure. > Why do I need a website to write to you? I can write dir…

> Because I'm not always online and you might not be when I'm. That's a good thing, because maybe I don't want to be able to reached all the time. If you want to, you can add your IPv6 address on your phone, which is virtually always online (I actually do this on my phone).

>If you want to, you can add your IPv6 address on your phone, which is virtually always online (I actually do this on my phone).

Is there a guide on how to do this? How do you manage it? I'd love to self host from a computer just sitting in my house. Way easier than something like a VPS.

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#48

Post by jka »

jasode wrote: post #16

It's sort of an ongoing hobby of mine to study the forces of decentralization vs centralization. This article about decentralization does what many other evangelism articles do: talk about the ideals and benefits . However, I believed what's rarely discussed but more important is the economic forces that prevent decentralization from fulfilling the idealists' vision. Yes, decentralization will be in effect for niche…

That trend seems real, yep, and your points ring true to me. In response to the items you mention (in reverse order), decentralization could become rapidly more attractive if & when:

2) The time required to configure, install, and use decentralized services reduces to within a small margin of the equivalent centralized systems

1) The cost of losing custody of your personal data, and the cost of being influenced and constrained within a proprietary system are more apparent and can be stacked onto the 'free' price tag

Work towards this takes a long time, especially while software engineers are in such demand in the profitable private sector (which, although there are exceptions, tends to skew towards building proprietary software).

In general I'd tend to believe that another, second trend is that decentralized and open source software does always eventually catch up (in a kind of asymptotic progress curve to infinity) - and that we'll reach this 'switch margin' eventually, it's just a question of how long it will take.

Re: The importance of decentralisation

#49

Post by idle_zealot »

telmich wrote: post #41
aloknnikhil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Even if running a git server is easy, not everyone will bother to maintain it and setup a regular backup process. Also, where do you back that data up to? Some central server or DHT/BitTorrent. Inherently, AWS is popular because companies would rather pay to have someone deal with the headache of managing hardware and infrastructure. > Why do I need a website to write to you? I can write dir…

> Because I'm not always online and you might not be when I'm. That's a good thing, because maybe I don't want to be able to reached all the time. If you want to, you can add your IPv6 address on your phone, which is virtually always online (I actually do this on my phone).

>you can add your IPv6 address on your phone

How does one achieve this while a phone is roaming between cell towers and various wifi access points?

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