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Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

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Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#11

That is, until the ease, quality and utility of fully decentralized systems exceeds the pain of the fragility and abusiveness of the current centralized offerings. The power of unenclosable carriers offered by breakthroughs such as Holochain https://holo.host is breathtaking.

You aren’t addressing the points the article made about efficiency and other selection pressures.

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#13
Nit: Dunbar’s number is casually used in a way that doesn’t seem relevant here. It’s not true that we can only remember about 150 entities. People know many thousands of words.

(It is true that there are limits on what people will remember.)

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#14

And yet our economic and social systems have never been more decentralised...

Meta and Visa suddenly go permanently offline. What does the social and economic landscape look like now?

I go to the bank and get cash. Businesses accept that cash for goods and services. I observe no difference in my social media habits because I do not use Meta products.

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#15

Tim Wu makes a similar argument in The Master Switch, a history of information networks and monopolies going back to telegraph networks in the 19th century.

Why stop at the 19th century? It's not like the cost of transmitting information was less expensive before then, nor was it less centralized (people who had the resources/knowledge to propagate such information).

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#16

That is, until the ease, quality and utility of fully decentralized systems exceeds the pain of the fragility and abusiveness of the current centralized offerings. The power of unenclosable carriers offered by breakthroughs such as Holochain https://holo.host is breathtaking.

You aren’t addressing the points the article made about efficiency and other selection pressures.

+1 - author argues that some degree of centralization is a natural property of interconnected systems to due the aggregated effects of things like preference attachment and economies of scale.

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta and Visa suddenly go permanently offline. What does the social and economic landscape look like now?

I go to the bank and get cash. Businesses accept that cash for goods and services. I observe no difference in my social media habits because I do not use Meta products.

Good for you, Mr. Exception-to-the-rule. (Btw, the same is true for me too).

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#18
It's also worth mentioning that in order to increase your status in any of these networks, you're going to have to serve the central nodes in some way. So if you're trying to grow your social media following, eventually you're going to have to get the attention of an influencer who will in turn rub off some of their influence on you. If you're trying to increase your capital, you're going to need to provide value to some influential capitalist. If you want to increase your political power, you're going to have to be appointed/elected to a role in some powerful political institution.

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#19
Decentralization is sort of a bad term in that it can have very different contextual meanings and the exact meaning is hard to pin down.

I like looking at it from a perspective of privacy, ownership/sovereignty, and choice.

A system that has a few dominant centralized players that are interchangeable is decentralized as far as I'm concerned. An example would be static web hosting. A system with hosted centralized options but where I can also self-host is also decentralized. An example would be something like GitLab.

I want systems where I own and control my own data and where it's not being data mined without my approval. I want systems where someone isn't always looking over my shoulder. I want systems that treat me as the customer not the product.

Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta and Visa suddenly go permanently offline. What does the social and economic landscape look like now?

I go to the bank and get cash. Businesses accept that cash for goods and services. I observe no difference in my social media habits because I do not use Meta products.

Just go and get cash during a bank run. How hard can that be?
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