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The Vision for Decentralized Web
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#42This a problem I’ve something I’ve been working on my free time. The biggest problem with the decentralized web right now is that setting up a server is a huge pain and your average person lacks the knowledge and resources to do so. I’ve been working on a simple music streaming server called mStream. The goal is to make a server even my mom could setup. I publish binaries for every major OS which means you don’t need…
>dealing with NATs still requires tech knowledge Have you considered MiniUPnP library? It's very easy to use. Of course, the modem has to support UPnP(the most of are) and has it enabled by default(not sure how many are, mine is).
I have, and it works well for some people but not everyone. You also get a problem where these ports close after several hours, leaving the user confused to why things just stopped working.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#43This a problem I’ve something I’ve been working on my free time. The biggest problem with the decentralized web right now is that setting up a server is a huge pain and your average person lacks the knowledge and resources to do so. I’ve been working on a simple music streaming server called mStream. The goal is to make a server even my mom could setup. I publish binaries for every major OS which means you don’t need…
Your first paragraph is absolutely correct. The issue I see with your solution is that there's no fault tolerance, so the service is likely to be unreliable, and then of course there's dynamic IP which means it will be difficult to connect to from the public internet. Honestly, the real issue is getting people to pay for things. Running web services has a cost, but it's hard to "see" it. If you're mom is going to wan…
In fact I would be interested to see if it's possible to protect consumers by regulating marketing of software and services as "free", where it can only done if strict data handling policies are applied.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#44AFAICS, neither Blockstack or dpage.io are "decentralized". Note the login page. Ask what happens if dpage.io site goes down. This is just a website. The fact that this site uses Blockstack's centralized servers doesn't make it "decentalized" any more than using AWS would.
Muneeb from Blockstack here. Dpage can be easily converted to a Desktop app. Most of the app logic is client-side anyway and hosting at a domain is mostly for convenience. Blockstack's "centralized servers" doesn't really fully capture the technology at play here. The pointers to user data lockers are stored in the Stacks blockchain, and users can host their own private encrypted data lockers where they want. Blockst…
It's fine to have some default servers for discovery bootstrapping (as Bitcoin does) but any subset of Bitcoin nodes can go down without the network failing. Is this true of Blockstack? If every Blockstack controlled or financed server went down, would the network continue to work?
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#45> In order to implement the vision of decentralization, first we need empower people to easily publish and own their content on the web. Why? If someone wants to publish, they'll learn what needs to be learnt. If they are not willing to do so, they don't really want to publish, so why empower them? (This is a serious question.)
Because already have centralized services that easily do that. You can't attract users without this.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need money to build and run the apps. Source: I do this for a living.
The operational costs are considerably lower with Blockstack, since the app doesn't host any user state (and in many cases, no state at all). Most apps don't need a database of any kind -- all the business logic runs client-side in the user's web browser.
Event if operational costs going to be 0, it's not a viable business model to not have profit.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#47the problem with decentralization is that, for an average Joe, it's just a bunch of loonies wearing tin foil hats who have something to hide, and besides, what has Facebook done to me (average Joe) personally? People, ultimately, don't care about privacy that much, not until they see obvious consequences of corps having their data that affect them greatly in their lives. Privacy against employers/old school friends/f…
> the problem with decentralization is that, for an average Joe, it's just a bunch of loonies wearing tin foil hats who have something to hide, and besides, what has Facebook done to me (average Joe) personally? I agree, but I think there's a middle ground that fits everyone. Eg, I really like federation because I feel it's a quality middle ground _(depending on the implementation)_. It is what I am targeting my proj…
What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. People will migrate, and then, slowly but surely, the trap will start springing. The service will be locked down, federation will be disabled, most data export functions too, same for the API etc. The quality will slowly degrade, but this willbe the point of no return. I see that happening with Gmail already.Mail was great, but we need more. Decentrealized protocols should be based on constitutions of democratic countries, as they've learned their lesson already. It's not enough to make a country democratic now, we need to secure it against future hostile attemts at takeover. Same needs to be done for decentralized/federated protocols.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#48the problem with decentralization is that, for an average Joe, it's just a bunch of loonies wearing tin foil hats who have something to hide, and besides, what has Facebook done to me (average Joe) personally? People, ultimately, don't care about privacy that much, not until they see obvious consequences of corps having their data that affect them greatly in their lives. Privacy against employers/old school friends/f…
Good point. I think that's the fundamental problem why most people don't care about internet privacy or mass surveillance. It's invisible and very easy to pretend it isn't there. I'm not sure what can be done about that.
To be honest, I don't care that much personally. I know the theoretical risks, but the things I get for not caring are just too great.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the problem with decentralization is that, for an average Joe, it's just a bunch of loonies wearing tin foil hats who have something to hide, and besides, what has Facebook done to me (average Joe) personally? I agree, but I think there's a middle ground that fits everyone. Eg, I really like federation because I feel it's a quality middle ground _(depending on the implementation)_. It is what I am targeting my proj…
What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots o…
> What guarantee do you have that your thing won't turn into the "Gmail and the rest of them" problem? Basically you need money and tech skills to run a server. Small, amateur servers might have problems like much more frequent downtime, being paid or small and hard to find etc. In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking.
This is not a problem I'm trying to solve, as I have not heard/thought-of a solution I like. I also feel it is a minimal problem.
Facebook is a problem in my view. Gmail, not so much. Why? Because I don't use Gmail, and I have minimal to zero issues caused by the fact that I don't use gmail. Federation seems to work well here.
> In that situation, some big corp, perhaps Google or Facebook, could create their own server, free for everyone, but with no privacy and lots of tracking. People will migrate, and then, slowly but surely, the trap will start springing.
I'm not sure I've seen that with something like email. Though, to be honest I'm not sure I've seen anything like email, either. It sort of happens with email in the sense that without a large email provider spam is difficult to beat. Furthermore large providers are distrusting of non-providers (ie, running your own email server), but this to me seems less of a problem with federation, and instead a problem with email itself - one I'm not sure how to solve. Spam is a difficult beast.
> I see that happening with Gmail already.Mail was great, but we need more. Decentrealized protocols should be based on constitutions of democratic countries, as they've learned their lesson already. It's not enough to make a country democratic now, we need to secure it against future hostile attemts at takeover. Same needs to be done for decentralized/federated protocols.
I don't understand what you mean tbh - but if your democratic countries create standards like email, federated and distributed, then I don't have any complaints. Though, to me (as a hypothetical dev) it makes little difference that you added politics on top of it - I just care that it's federated and I can own my data/etc.
Re: The Vision for Decentralized Web
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The operational costs are considerably lower with Blockstack, since the app doesn't host any user state (and in many cases, no state at all). Most apps don't need a database of any kind -- all the business logic runs client-side in the user's web browser.
Event if operational costs going to be 0, it's not a viable business model to not have profit.
I never claimed otherwise ;)
However, I will claim that the lower operational expenditure (and lower liability for holding user data) makes profitability on-the-whole easier to achieve in Blockstack-powered apps.