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The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

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Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#51

Post by CJefferson »

kordless wrote: post #46
pfraze wrote: post #40

Ok, a lot of people don't know the context for this. Last week, the Internet Archive ran the Decentralized Web Summit. It was an opportunity for new projects [1] to gather with prominent people in the industry [2]. It was productive and very fun. It also resulted in a bunch of news pieces, like this one, which have been hitting the HN FP for a week. Some of those articles have been better than others; a lot of them f…

I'd prefer some action items from meetings like these. What we need is an interledger + IPFS integration with some form of ledgered/DAO backed deployment mechanism. This will give us high trust software deployments that also scale for high decentralization across the world's infrastructure. IoT updates done this way, for example, would allow devices get their own wallets and use those funds to pay for their own exist…

Never have I read a post where Poe's law applied my strongly.

If you are serious, I think perhaps you are trying to solve too many social problems with technological ones -- see the recent DAO drainage -- if devices had wallets to pay for their own existence, they would almost certainly just get hacked. They'd certainly be a great target!

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#53

Post by doublerebel »

tsunamifury wrote: post #3

Most of these guys are a disconnected from where the global market is going and are proposing preposterous ideas for west coast tech scenes own problems. The web was based on a Western educational reference model that is not the normal mode for 3/4ths of the planet. The new web would need to be pushed based, not pull based. It would need to be need to be instantly authorable and aware of people and devices, Not docum…

I believe you've identified much of the problem: the way people typically share knowledge is not how the internet is built. It was captured early by marketing and introverted engineers.

If instead we give people a couple simple tools, decentralization will happen naturally and facts can surface through a natural web of trust. Just like in the real world.

Part of this is letting go of the interface. Right now our interfaces are riddled with dark patterns and fall far short of accessibility. We should own our interfaces to knowledge, since technology is a lever that is an extension of ourselves. If we focus on knowledge, advertisements and spam naturally fall away.

I'm not sure pure push would work, I think a sync+hash model is better: this is what Urbit and IPFS figured out early. But the interface to that is currently horrid for any average person.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#54

Post by freshhawk »

jlg23 wrote: post #48

* The technology for a lot of things is there (e.g. diaspora instead of facebook, etherpad instead of google docs) but hosting these costs money. And people don't want to pay and they don't understand they currently pay with their data/privacy. * Making the data behind a commercial site open is a great, noble idea - but all of the current big, consumer facing players make money with the customer data. They have no in…

I also see the sense in the idea that these more modern protocols, that make some of the current problematic uses impossible, can also allow some cool new things as well. And can allow some new kinds of killer apps that will attract enough people (who probably don't care about the distributed/privacy/security aspects) to get critical mass and be real competition.

The interesting part is the high chance, given recent history, that the first of these killer apps will be things that are under-served for non-technical reasons. Like sharing copyrighted media, or censored media/communications or black market marketplaces.

But I think you are probably right. Unfortunately the ability to push for these interventions gets harder and harder as the current environment concentrates more power among those who are directly opposed to them.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#55

Post by kordless »

CJefferson wrote: post #51
kordless wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prefer some action items from meetings like these. What we need is an interledger + IPFS integration with some form of ledgered/DAO backed deployment mechanism. This will give us high trust software deployments that also scale for high decentralization across the world's infrastructure. IoT updates done this way, for example, would allow devices get their own wallets and use those funds to pay for their own exist…

Never have I read a post where Poe's law applied my strongly. If you are serious, I think perhaps you are trying to solve too many social problems with technological ones -- see the recent DAO drainage -- if devices had wallets to pay for their own existence, they would almost certainly just get hacked. They'd certainly be a great target!

The drainer of the DAO well might have a point arguing it is "legal" to do, given the protocol allows it. Solving that without a hard fork will be exceedingly enlightening. Solving social problems is a separate problem entirely, given the socials require centralization. We still need centralization, of course, but it has zero to do with embodying trusted infrastructure.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#56

Post by ZenoArrow »

pfraze wrote: post #40

Ok, a lot of people don't know the context for this. Last week, the Internet Archive ran the Decentralized Web Summit. It was an opportunity for new projects [1] to gather with prominent people in the industry [2]. It was productive and very fun. It also resulted in a bunch of news pieces, like this one, which have been hitting the HN FP for a week. Some of those articles have been better than others; a lot of them f…

> "Kahle gave a good talk at the end of day 1, where he pointed out that nobody quite knows what the end-user's interest is here. Are we talking about "open-source websites?""

To me the answer is obvious.

Look at how the web is used now. Like it or not a high proportion of web activity is social. However, users of sites with a social focus recognise that there are drawbacks to the current arrangements, in that your user experience does not always reflect what's best for you. To give a simple example, the news feed on Facebook is curated based on algorithms you do not have full control over.

From a technology perspective, there are two key parts to what could replace this arrangement to provide a tangible benefit... home servers and decentralised identity. Home servers would need to be as close to zero configuration as possible, whilst still remaining secure. Decentralised identity would then be used to connect to the home servers.

One way to think about it would be... instead of typing in a website address, you choose from a contact list. Whatever people share is held on their personal server. You could use apps that run on your own server to aggregate media from your contacts.

The tangible benefit is found in connecting to others without relying on middle men. Contact is direct whilst still retaining convenience.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#57

Post by pessimizer »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #37

The deep learning is that there are forces that lead to centralization: generally they are variations of human choice and seeking economies of scale. For instance, it's no accident that we started with hundreds of thousands of small websites and ended with most traffic going to a few. Ask yourself how the internet could have been constructed that would have prevented sites like Facebook or Twitter winning the popular…

> The deep learning is that there are forces that lead to centralization: generally they are variations of human choice and seeking economies of scale.

The reason that some airports are hubs and some are not is due to the the fact that it's a system spanning large areas of varying densities. Distance doesn't exist much on the internet, other than firewalls. The goal of most internet companies is to create that distance through lack of interop, in order to guide the maximum amount of traffic through a single point where it can charge a toll. It's typical rent-seeking. I'd argue that a bureaucratic metaphor is far more apt than any spatial one.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#58

Post by hanniabu »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #56
pfraze wrote: post #40

Ok, a lot of people don't know the context for this. Last week, the Internet Archive ran the Decentralized Web Summit. It was an opportunity for new projects [1] to gather with prominent people in the industry [2]. It was productive and very fun. It also resulted in a bunch of news pieces, like this one, which have been hitting the HN FP for a week. Some of those articles have been better than others; a lot of them f…

> "Kahle gave a good talk at the end of day 1, where he pointed out that nobody quite knows what the end-user's interest is here. Are we talking about "open-source websites?"" To me the answer is obvious. Look at how the web is used now. Like it or not a high proportion of web activity is social. However, users of sites with a social focus recognise that there are drawbacks to the current arrangements, in that your u…

Very interesting idea about simple home servers used to eliminate the middle men. I have to admit, this actually seems like a viable option if it could be done right. Good idea that I think deserves more thought and should be looked into. I'm curious what the opinions of others are on this idea.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#59

Post by Zigurd »

jlg23 wrote: post #48

* The technology for a lot of things is there (e.g. diaspora instead of facebook, etherpad instead of google docs) but hosting these costs money. And people don't want to pay and they don't understand they currently pay with their data/privacy. * Making the data behind a commercial site open is a great, noble idea - but all of the current big, consumer facing players make money with the customer data. They have no in…

The technology is there. Even the economic motivation is within reach: The ad-supported internet is reaching the limits of its potential. Normalizing owning a node is an obvious direction to explore, and it could be as simple as the best site-builders are today.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#60

Post by doublerebel »

hanniabu wrote: post #58
ZenoArrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Kahle gave a good talk at the end of day 1, where he pointed out that nobody quite knows what the end-user's interest is here. Are we talking about "open-source websites?"" To me the answer is obvious. Look at how the web is used now. Like it or not a high proportion of web activity is social. However, users of sites with a social focus recognise that there are drawbacks to the current arrangements, in that your u…

Very interesting idea about simple home servers used to eliminate the middle men. I have to admit, this actually seems like a viable option if it could be done right. Good idea that I think deserves more thought and should be looked into. I'm curious what the opinions of others are on this idea.

This is what I'm working on at Optik -- but forget the idea of a server. All we need is a device, a writing program, and a sync program. Everyone already has these tools in their pocket, they just have a bad interface and therefore nobody knows how to use it in this manner.

Identity is solved by real-world trust. Facebook has proven most of us are separated by less than 5 degrees.

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