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Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

wired.com

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Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#21

Post by nstart »

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 away from this problem just because some article says it's going to be challenging.

Solve it for yourself.

Post on your own blogs on your own servers.

Solve it for others.

Help others get set up with their own servers.

Create solutions for people

Make attempts at creating decentralized solutions. Even if a 1000 people use it, someday we might crack the code to getting people off the walled gardens.

Basically, if that article sounded like a demotivating blow to your hopes, please flip the bird at it, and keep working to solve this problem.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#22

Post by amelius »

codewithcheese wrote: post #3

What short sighted click bait. Steem has already solved or partially solved most of these problems and we haven't even scratched the service. Read the Steem white paper [1] if you want your mind blown. [1] https://steem.io

I wonder if the concepts in Steem could be applied to the real economy, to arrive at a more fair distribution of wealth.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#23

Post by albertgoeswoof »

panic wrote: post #13
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon is not successful by any metric compared with even the smallest social networks, let alone the giants

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

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#24

Post by albertgoeswoof »

CalRobert wrote: post #17

Except in one sense, it already does. I have some friends with blogs. Those blogs have RSS feeds. Feeds of "news", you might say. I load up sageRSS in Firefox, see friends who have new content in bold, and get their news. A "news feed", you might even say. Admittedly I can't easily use that to deduce that x is friends with y is friends with z, or (easily) get a map of where all of my friends went on vacation last yea…

this is kind of dying though, or at least flat in terms of growth overall

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#25

Post by 2sk21 »

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…

You are right - after reading this article, it just seemed to confirm my opinion the decentralized networks don't work but we ought not to give up.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#26

Post by scandox »

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'd like to add one remark to this: everything doesn't have to be huge. We don't have to deal always in millions and billions. Small groups. Even individuals. What they do is meaningful. What we do is not pointless just because it doesn't create some massive impact.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#27

Post by dest »

panic wrote: post #13
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon is not successful by any metric compared with even the smallest social networks, let alone the giants

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.

It's very popular in Japan because of the "lolicon" phenomenon (cultural sexy drawings of youth people), which is not accepted by Twitter because of the occidental culture in which this is a taboo.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#29

Post by mannigfaltig »

codewithcheese wrote: post #3

What short sighted click bait. Steem has already solved or partially solved most of these problems and we haven't even scratched the service. Read the Steem white paper [1] if you want your mind blown. [1] https://steem.io

What are the key reasons someone should go to Steem rather than to some existing social platform? Steem will likely be slower and the barriers to contribute will likely be higher.

Secondly, do you think it is a good basis for building communities if everything is associated with monetary rewards? Sites like Reddit are exactly enjoyable because, most of the time, reward is only imaginary, just like in real-world gatherings of people: It is about having a good time rather than about an exchange of money.

Thirdly, how do you ensure that the things people post on Steem are their own work, especially if the data is hosted elsewhere, e.g. on YouTube. There will probably be massive, irreversible thefts of intellectual property (a.k.a. reposters, but with actual money involved). Conversely, a lot of valuable content comes actually from reposting and "karma theft" (which is what linking e.g. a blog article from someone else actually is).

Fourthly, how do you avoid fraud as for example often found on Kickstarter? Kickstarter actually has a review process and even they are not fully equipped for it. I am not seeing reliable moderation ever scale enough such that it can withstand the likely immense fraudulent interests due to the monetary incentives.

Re: Decentralized Social Networks Won't Work

#30

Post by lxrbst »

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.

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