Towards a world without Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#161

Post by ReverseCold » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #124

ReverseCold wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blockchain can just be used to do PKI. People having cryptocurrency wallets installed means they have a private key, and when people have private keys you can do a whole lot of cool stuff. My blockchain/IoT startup[0] primarily uses the blockchain as just that, a backend for PKI. [0]: https://ethyl.io/

Why not just give people private keys? Why attach them to a blockchain?

My point was that blockchain being ubiquitous leads to people already having a set of keys that they can use.

Of course you can manage keys yourself, but it's a lot harder than if the user already has it set up.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#162

Post by AHMagic » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #111

AHMagic wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's why I don't think decentralization is a red herring: in a centralized service, if you disagree, you don't have another option. If you didn't like AOL and quit, there was no way for you to maintain contact with AOL users unless both parties used a different platform. Decentralized systems like phone, e-mail, and mail allow you to maintain contact with people while having control over your provider. I understand…

That is a somewhat valid point but I think you and me are using decentralized in different senses here. When I said decentralized I meant a decentralized application, something without central servers. You are more talking about standardized protocols that can be implemented by different vendors and which together form a federated network. There is certainly also some overlap there. But your examples of phone, mail,…

You're right. I think I'm referring more to "federated" than "decentralized".

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#163

Post by whataretensors » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #156

whataretensors wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A user can run a custom curator. Alternatively sites could be developed that give access to the network and do their own filtering. There are other choices besides authoritarian censorship, despite the popularity these days.

> Alternatively sites could be developed that give access to the network and do their own filtering. ...and add their own content, which is only viewable from that site and not elsewhere on the network. And the most popular one of those will eventually just displace the decentralized network.

There would be competitive features and low barrier of entry since the data isn't warehoused by one entity.

Sure a platform could add their own features off-chain. But the user would not be rewarded by the protocol for such divergences.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#164

Post by marknadal » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

omnimus wrote: post #159

marknadal wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The algorithm needed for Multi-Master (decentralized) data is a CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type). Specifically, this solves the problem of data consistency across different node/peers without needing a central (ie, Facebook's servers) master. The way it works, is like so: http://gun.js.org/distributed/matters.html However, a blockchain is still actually useful for a P2P Facebook. A blockchain that uses a con…

Hi Mark. I really like GunDB but i see your comments on hacker news so often that i almost started to think that you are a bot. I mean it is great to market your database but GUNDB can't be answer to everything. I would understand if you were pushing some alternative social network like Scuttlebutt/Patchwork but pushing database on every hacker news post with social media theme is strange. Do you propose to replace f…

Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. Here is my reasoning process.

Ultimately, I have to choose one of two philosophies:

(A) Be ashamed of the free (MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source) code that I have spent tens of thousands of hours donating for others to use.

(B) Or strongly believe in why I've devoted so much of my life to, fixing these problems, and be proud to share and evangelize it with the world.

Obviously, I don't want to come off as a bot, but ever since the first day I started working on GUN I've gotten haters saying things. As a result, it forced me to grow a thick skin. Even if you try to do nice things, people try to hate you, be skeptical, or be suspicious (this is a natural human tendency).

So, do I be (A) fearful to not post or comment, simply because I know some will not like it or get tired of it? Honestly, the thought crosses my mind every time I basically do anything in life, but I've decided "No, that is an easy trap of depression and pessimism to get stuck in."

Instead, I've decided to be proactively do (B), that even if only 1 person gets value out of my post, and they discover "Aha! This is a free MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 system that does EXACTLY what I need!" then my belief is that the world is better off. Better off for them, better off for me, and hopefully better off for the users who use the app they create.

If I forced you to pay me $$$ to read my articles or $$$ to use my code, then there would be a strong argument that my behavior is unethical.

Or even if I tried to show you ads or mine your data, then that would be unethical.

The problem is, I'm building tools that fight that type of unethical behavior. But that immediately puts us at a disadvantage compared to those who do exploit/manipulate people/the-masses into doing things.

Now, what is the relevance of the week-long HackerNews-obsessed Facebook debacle?

Well, I hope my comments have pointed out clearly, that nobody would be in this situation if they used P2P/decentralized end-to-end encrypted systems. And that is exactly one of the reasons why I've built the tool, and donated it for anybody to use. However (perhaps this is my pessimism coming through), it seems like people get more glee complaining/griping about how evil Facebook is for hosting all their pet/child photos for free, while still playing the victim card, AND doing nothing to change their behavior or spend time/energy/work to build alternatives. (To clarify: We shouldn't pity Facebook, they profit a lot off of people, but building solutions is a better win for the world than complaining about it. Although I'm afraid comments like that will cue the haters.)

I do occasionally mention SSB, Mastodon, etc. but they also have their problems (Mastodon is federated, will lead to the same thing as with email, everybody will use gmail), SSB is way way way better.

So, there you go. Thoughts?