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Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

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Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#101

Post by ineptech »

phkahler wrote: post #61
nstart wrote: post #21

Just in case any bright eyed hopeful person is reading this, please don't think "ah shucks" and go away. Some of the biggest things in the internet including the protocols the internet lives on were never envisioned as something that would change the life of billions of people. They were initially created to solve a problem for a small group and then grew into something much bigger over time. Please please don't back…

I have given some thought to this problem and I think it's technically solvable. The main problem is that it would be non-profit so less incentive to build it. Anyone want to kick around ideas?

The Urbit model (open source, funded by a one-time cost for each new identity) is an elegant solution which has the side effect of discouraging spam.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#102

Post by Method-X »

hndamien wrote: post #91
phkahler wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given some thought to this problem and I think it's technically solvable. The main problem is that it would be non-profit so less incentive to build it. Anyone want to kick around ideas?

Bitcoin started as a non-profit (obviously not technically but my point is, cryptocurrencies allow you to leverage and trade value created without external money)

Yes but a cryptocurrency only makes sense for certain use cases. In this case, the token would have to serve some sort of useful function related to the social network.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#103

Post by ineptech »

gwenzek wrote: post #62
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #32

"People do not want to operate their own servers" ... oh, how much I hate that argument. There are so many baseless assumptions in there. What does "operate a server" even mean? Is "loading a web page that accepts WebRTC requests" "operating a server"? Obviously, what people mean is some sort of "people don't want to learn how to manage the installation and configuration of a linux distribution on the command line".…

Totally agree with you. I think a successful decentralized network should come with pre-configured Raspberry Pi that would act as a web server hosting the user pictures, contacts… And maybe a bit of friends data for backup.

s/Raspberry Pi/EC2 instance/

A world where it's common for people to run their own server opens up exciting possibilities (just as a world where everyone carries a computer in their pocket has), but I don't think actual physical servers is going to get us there.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#104

Post by daveid »

lxrbst wrote: post #30
panic wrote: post #7

None of the reasons they give -- difficulty of user acquisition, conflict between security and convenience, curation, or economies of scale -- are fundamental obstacles to making a decentralized social network. Mastodon has found some success despite facing the same problems.

Mastodon is not successful, at all. Apparently content that was not accepted on twitter, such as lolicon, has found a new home on Mastodon. The average user would never bother to migrate to decentralized services for any other reason then necessity, lack of choice, or to escape rules/laws.

Reposting from Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/18213943

If you think the only reason to use a self-hosted social network is if you want to circumvent the laws, you're making the same argument as only wanting privacy if you've got something to hide. YouTube ran an algorithm to delete "extremist videos" and accidentally irreversibly deleted a bunch of historical evidence of destruction of Syrian historical sites. Shit like that happens all the time when someone else is in charge.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#105

Post by ionised »

arkh wrote: post #69

Here is the problem I have with most advertised decentralized social networks. Their only added value is being decentralized. Decentralized twitter / facebook / instagram. What do you gain from using those decentralized things? Nothing aside from being a hipster. And you lose your current social connections. Even worse, decentralized solutions existed before and are still available: blog software, bulletin boards, IR…

The fact that it is decentralised is the main benefit I am interested in.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#106

Post by [deleted] »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #23
panic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you find these metrics? Looking at the federated timeline, I see posts appearing at a pretty fast rate (more than one per second), though most of them are in Japanese.

go and ask everyone you meet in person today if they've heard of mastodon

[deleted]

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#108

Post by sharkhacks »

The reason distributed/decentralized things fail isn't because of the BS reasons this article gives. In my opinion it is about - Usability: open source UI and UX sucks for the most part... build an amazing UI and user experience and users will come.

- Do NOT expect people to download and setup software and run nodes... Can you build it in the universal piece of software that everybody has today.. AKA browser ? I think whoever nails these challenges will win.

- I think somebody (maybe me) should build such a 'universal browser' that allows all of these decentralized things to happen. I was thinking Brave would be that browser.. but I'm not sure..

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