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Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

cdixon.org

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Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#71

Post by TuringTest »

have_faith wrote: post #17

>Wikipedia improved at a much faster rate, because it had an active community of volunteer contributors who were attracted to its decentralized, community-governed ethos. Does being open contribution warrant the use of the word "decentralised"? as far as I can tell it's still a huge success story from a centralisation perspective.

The biggest selling point of Wikipedia at its growth phase was that the content wasn't tied to a single central service, anyone could take it and use it for any other purpose - creating competing services, bundling it with commercial products, etc.

The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspects of the explanation of areas of knowledge; the license allowed that. And the growth was initially not coordinated from a central place, an anarchic community began working on different areas and only later began coordinating by building top level behavior policies (as intended).

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#72

Post by Joker_vD »

synctext wrote: post #26
donmcronald wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! And, in addition to that complexity, there are scalability issues that are easier to solve with some amount of centralization. Would you rather build on a platform where you're paying a well known company or a platform comprised of a bunch of anonymous nodes trying to minimize operating costs? That Filecoin thing is a great example. Yeah, I want to store my mission critical data on a bunch of EoL, consumer g…

It is not some amount of centralization. Our experimental university work sees all startups cheat with servers. They still sell it as Web3. If you run the servers, you need to police the service! You simply become Web2 again. It should be self-organising and pure, like Bitcoin. Scientifically Web3 consists of: peer-to-peer technology (e.g. Bittorrent) with a distributed ledger (e.g. Bitcoin) and the social practice o…

> peer-to-peer technology (e.g. Bittorrent) with a distributed ledger (e.g. Bitcoin) and the social practice of sharing (e.g. Github)

2 out of 3 of those things (minus distributed ledger) has been around for about 20 years now. Y'know, The Pirate Bay and others?

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#73

Post by brightstep »

treestumpquiet wrote: post #70
brightstep wrote: post #32

The author says "democracy isn't perfect but it's better than the alternative," then overlooks the obvious corollary with regard to "GAFA" and other powerful corporations: we should have democratic control over our economy. Crypto and web3 are an attempt to solve a political problem with a technological tool; a cop-out to avoid a political fight. We're not going to make a better, more just or more democratic world by…

Software is trying to virtualize a left-government. But without addressing the underlying problems of ownership in the real world, every virtualization is ultimately a zero-sum game.

Exactly. You can build as equitable a software system as you want. It will still be used, misused and regulated within the context of our existing real-world power structures. Meaningful change to those structures cannot be affected with a technological solution absent a political movement.

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#74

Post by spiralx »

mad44 wrote: post #29

Three years ago, I had written this as a response. https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/03/change-my-mind-abo... I don't see any better arguments, development put forth since then

There have been precious few new arguments put forth since the crypto space pivoted from "currency of the future" to "immutable store of value" as its origin story, and even then it was - as you pointed out - a bunch of assertions taken as fact and edge cases treated as critical problems in dire need of solutions.

Web3 and NFTs are interesting only in that they're so nonsensical even a large chunk of crypto believers can't bring themselves to buy into them.

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#75

Post by spiralx »

TuringTest wrote: post #71
have_faith wrote: post #17

>Wikipedia improved at a much faster rate, because it had an active community of volunteer contributors who were attracted to its decentralized, community-governed ethos. Does being open contribution warrant the use of the word "decentralised"? as far as I can tell it's still a huge success story from a centralisation perspective.

The biggest selling point of Wikipedia at its growth phase was that the content wasn't tied to a single central service, anyone could take it and use it for any other purpose - creating competing services, bundling it with commercial products, etc. The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspect…

> The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspects of the explanation of areas of knowledge; the license allowed that. And the growth was initially not coordinated from a central place, an anarchic community began working on different areas and only later began coordinating by building top level behavior policies (as intended).

This is a remarkable framing that skirts around the fact that Wikipedia started as a single project and website and remains a single project and website today. Neither crowdsourcing content nor having a permissive license require or even imply decentralisation of any kind.

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#76

Post by largely_sitting »

cblconfederate wrote: post #22
keyle wrote: post #16

I don't understand why the message ends up "let's go crypto" and not "make protocols, not startups". He started by talking about the good old days. He clearly identifies the issues of crypto and that there was nothing wrong with open protocols besides speed to market (which is easier to fix than the snafu of crypto) He identified Wikipedia vs Encarta and Wikipedia is a success but has nothing to do with crypto. There…

existing protocols were not built around identity, but the new ones do, and in order to avoid the centralization that is inherent to identity, they have rely on blockchains or something equivalent (which doesnt exist), hence the crypto connection. It doesnt have to involve money, but the solutions are equivalent. E.g. metamask can be a wallet or an authentication mechanism.

Identity can always be botted and forged.

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#77

Post by TuringTest »

spiralx wrote: post #75
TuringTest wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest selling point of Wikipedia at its growth phase was that the content wasn't tied to a single central service, anyone could take it and use it for any other purpose - creating competing services, bundling it with commercial products, etc. The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspect…

> The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspects of the explanation of areas of knowledge; the license allowed that. And the growth was initially not coordinated from a central place, an anarchic community began working on different areas and only later began coordinating by building top level…

> Neither crowdsourcing content nor having a permissive license require or even imply decentralisation of any kind.

That's only true if you don't consider "crowdsourcing" and "open sourcing" as forms of decentralization on themselves. A project based on those foundations will necessarily have a less centralised and controlling leadership than one based on the concept of ownership and copy rights, because it cannot prevent decisions being made by multiple actors and not just the governing board.

Re: Why Decentralization Matters (2018)

#78

Post by spiralx »

TuringTest wrote: post #77
spiralx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The website where the efforts were finally consolidated was a central place, but it could very well have been developed as a network of nodes dedicated to different aspects of the explanation of areas of knowledge; the license allowed that. And the growth was initially not coordinated from a central place, an anarchic community began working on different areas and only later began coordinating by building top level…

> Neither crowdsourcing content nor having a permissive license require or even imply decentralisation of any kind. That's only true if you don't consider "crowdsourcing" and "open sourcing" as forms of decentralization on themselves. A project based on those foundations will necessarily have a less centralised and controlling leadership than one based on the concept of ownership and copy rights, because it cannot pr…

The Wikimedia Foundation is literally run by a governing board lol, and if I start a project on Kickstarter I still have complete control and ownership of my project. Saying that "having multiple contributors" or "permissive licensing" is decentralisation is just silly.
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