"The highway network is not scale-free" - no shit, highways refer to roads of a specific size. You're taking a slice out of the road distribution.
Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
71–80 of 158 posts
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since somebody chose to downvote the above comment, I think it bears elaboration for those who might not understand. A contemporary example is domain names. The current domain system is a monopoly, and it sucks. You pay companies a never-ending and ever-increasing rent to do literally less than nothing. A domain isn't much more than a key/value pair in a small database. You're paying never-ending rent to them for the…
> A contemporary example is domain names. The current domain system is a monopoly, and it sucks. You pay companies a never-ending and ever-increasing rent to do literally less than nothing. A domain isn't much more than a key/value pair in a small database. Is there any legal or technical reason why someone can't set up a DNS server that resolves domain names to different IP addresses than those traditionally used?
People have tried: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#73The point of open protocols is not that there will actually be many providers, but that one could switch providers easily if they do something fishy. It's about the threat, and what can happen on margin. Keeping a sword dangling over the monopolist's head is reasonable.
Not if the switching cost is high and/or slow. The problems of a monarchy will not be solved by setting up a competing neighboring kingdom.
To bring the topic back to networking, it has been said that decentralization is the worst form of networking except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
(With apologies to Winston Churchill.)
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#74The author doesn’t understand bitcoin; The pie chart is misleading. All you have to do to see that it is wrong is see how the chart has changed over time. Why isn’t one big mining pool taking all the others? Why did the miners lose the block-size wars?
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#75Centralization and decentralization happen in waves as a natural result of ossification and complexity growth. As an example, IBM was once the dominant market force in computation. As the business grew and became increasingly byzantine, it was unable to respond to market changes or market demands in any meaningful way, and therefore the market became decentralized. This happened to Microsoft. If Apple continues on it…
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Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#76"Inevitable" is the last desperate cry of those who have given up thinking.
It can also be caused by people who think in an imperfect manner. Most people think according to how they have been taught to think, not what is perfect. A critical component of a well designed trap: consider all suggestions that you are trapped in an imperfect methodology to be conspiratorial/etc, and therefore false . Checkmate.
I think I follow you. It's a way to shut down conversation before it's
even begun.
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#77Plug: I'm working with the author on a decentralized protocol for networked thought and a companion browser called Subconscious. We're a very young project and just getting off the ground. If you're interested in topics like the one in the article, all our work is open source and we love getting into it with folks on Github or our Discord (link in the README): https://github.com/subconsciousnetwork/noosphere
I've been exploring Noosphere as a protocol-level solution to the dilemma posed here about centralization. Some really interesting tech! Definitely worth checking out if this stuff interests you.
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beyond network effect, nope. This is one of the more convenient ways to block in-app ads on mobile. Set your DNS to something like AdGuard's servers, and they'll resolve ad delivering domains to a no-op. And suddenly all major third party ads in apps or the web alike are gone.
> Beyond network effect, nope. So why does no-one do this/ Obviously people do do it for ad-blocking, so why not for other purposes? Too difficult to get traction, perhaps?
There are DNS blocklists for mail servers. It's a slightly different thing, but basically there's if there's an entry it means there's a reputation for the mail sender. Some of them are present/not present and some have a score. Some are against the IP of the sender only, while others are against the domain name or full hostname of the sender. You just set your mail server to do the right lookup against the right DNS server, and incoming mail can be filtered based on the results of the DB someone else is maintaining.
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beyond network effect, nope. This is one of the more convenient ways to block in-app ads on mobile. Set your DNS to something like AdGuard's servers, and they'll resolve ad delivering domains to a no-op. And suddenly all major third party ads in apps or the web alike are gone.
> Beyond network effect, nope. So why does no-one do this/ Obviously people do do it for ad-blocking, so why not for other purposes? Too difficult to get traction, perhaps?
There are a very few alternate roots that have actually gotten traction - the most famous of which is .onion
Re: Centralization is inevitable, but decentralization is right behind it
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus, if these protocols are built on top of cryptographic methods, it might not be so easy for the providers to do something fishy in the first place.
Sure, Binance could run off with your money tomorrow if they wanted you, but if you keep most of your money in your actual Bitcoin wallet and only deposit what you need to, your money is 100% safe.
100% safe from some forms of loss but you still have various risks associated with passwords, key phrases, wallet phrases, software bugs, backups, etc.