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We need decentralized communication

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21–30 of 61 posts

Re: We need decentralized communication

#21
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-Droid [1] has addressed this pretty well for Android devices. [1]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/im.vector.alpha/

Until F-Droid removes the app from the store for whatever reason

F-Droid supports adding additional repositories, so there is no "the store."

Re: We need decentralized communication

#22
post #20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't beat them, join 'em. At least until you can.

A technically-inclined person can beat them pretty easily (at least on the privacy/ethics front) by spending $5 on a Digital Ocean droplet and spinning up Nginx.

Or do it for free using GitHub pages + Jekyll.

Re: We need decentralized communication

#23
post #14

There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.

Just because you need something, doesn't mean you need to use it. Decentralized communication is a fallback in the event that centralized communication fails, in the same way that cash is a fallback in the case that credit cards fail/are blocked. I don't carry cash, and I don't use decentralized communication methods, but I still think both are very important to have.

Re: We need decentralized communication

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A technically-inclined person can beat them pretty easily (at least on the privacy/ethics front) by spending $5 on a Digital Ocean droplet and spinning up Nginx.

Or do it for free using GitHub pages + Jekyll.

That's pretty dang centralized.

Then again, so is using a VPS, just at a different layer

Re: We need decentralized communication

#25

A big thing that annoys me about buzzwords like "decentralized" is that they're not binary. Another one that's largely lost meaning is "blockchain". Decentralized is relative and depends entirely on the context. They do tend to represent ideas like anti-censorship, individualism, and (sometimes) privacy. I think it makes more sense to discuss these topics in terms of the actual implication of what you're decentralizi…

> E-mailadres is also decentralized, but so what? Most people use the same email providers so it's somewhat meaningless for SMTP itself to be decentralized. Google can still read your emails.

I actually think email is almost the ideal implementation of a decentralized network. You're always going to have giants in any communication network- that's simple the reality. Email allows people to use these giants or, and critically, it allows people to join in the conversation while not using those giants. It is open. Suppose this were to happen with twitter or facebook, where the protocol was open and people using networks like mastodon could simply join in. That is a way to achieve decentralization, with the benefits that go with it. If you don't want google to read your mail, you and your correspondences can choose not to. Twitter and Facebook offer no such choice.

Re: We need decentralized communication

#27
post #14

There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.

I can just imagine it: "But you see, I'm only using medium.com because it's convenient. Other people shouldn't, but I'm just using it for now and will switch to something better, someday. I just don't have time at the moment." I don't think there's anything wrong with using Medium, but this is always where decentralization/security/open-protocols utopia seems to die: convenience and the UX. Where everyone seems to be…

Can someone fill me in here please, how did medium become the place for these sorts of posts when self hosted wordpress, ghost, Squarespace, wix and just basic HTML were created so that you can host a text blog running on a server you control from wherever you want? How did medium take hold and why?

Re: We need decentralized communication

#28
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can just imagine it: "But you see, I'm only using medium.com because it's convenient. Other people shouldn't, but I'm just using it for now and will switch to something better, someday. I just don't have time at the moment." I don't think there's anything wrong with using Medium, but this is always where decentralization/security/open-protocols utopia seems to die: convenience and the UX. Where everyone seems to be…

Can someone fill me in here please, how did medium become the place for these sorts of posts when self hosted wordpress, ghost, Squarespace, wix and just basic HTML were created so that you can host a text blog running on a server you control from wherever you want? How did medium take hold and why?

Medium offered expanded reach. A lot of people used to cross-post their personal blog on Medium; some comparisons I've seen showed nearly 10x more views from the Medium post.

Re: We need decentralized communication

#29
post #14

There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.

Just because you need something, doesn't mean you need to use it. Decentralized communication is a fallback in the event that centralized communication fails, in the same way that cash is a fallback in the case that credit cards fail/are blocked. I don't carry cash, and I don't use decentralized communication methods, but I still think both are very important to have.

If you need cash because the card network is down, then it's already too late to get cash. Thus, it's important to test the decentralized methods, just like it's important to test your backups. And if they haven't been tested (and have up to date instructions!) the only safe assumption is to assume they don't work.

Re: We need decentralized communication

#30
post #14

There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.

I only clicked this so I could say this same thing. I'm glad I'm not alone in seeing this as a completely ridiculous juxtaposition between wanting decentralized communication while using a horrible centralized service. This author should start with creating a static blog or something.
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