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How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

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Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#71

Post by drb91 »

egonschiele wrote: post #20
zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

> the platform that developers want to support is the one that wins. This is very hard to believe. Developers hate apple, facebook, and countless other platforms that are doing very well. Adoption is the fundamental problem, not what developers want to support. The platform with the most users is what people will develop for.

I’m not sure I follow developers hating Apple when 99% of the engineers I see use an apple laptop.

As to facebook, we’ll see if it survives. There’s not much to use it for aside from advertising as a platform, and I’ve heard nothing but negatives about return on ads.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#72

Post by eksemplar »

egonschiele wrote: post #20
zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

> the platform that developers want to support is the one that wins. This is very hard to believe. Developers hate apple, facebook, and countless other platforms that are doing very well. Adoption is the fundamental problem, not what developers want to support. The platform with the most users is what people will develop for.

Most developers I know use MacBooks, my own staff included.

Most JS developers quite like stuff like react, and most api developers like graphQL. So while developers may dislike Facebook as a company, they don’t seem to dislike Facebook tools.

I don’t think the platform that developers like will necessarily take of though.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#73

Post by feanaro »

eksemplar wrote: post #72
egonschiele wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the platform that developers want to support is the one that wins. This is very hard to believe. Developers hate apple, facebook, and countless other platforms that are doing very well. Adoption is the fundamental problem, not what developers want to support. The platform with the most users is what people will develop for.

Most developers I know use MacBooks, my own staff included. Most JS developers quite like stuff like react, and most api developers like graphQL. So while developers may dislike Facebook as a company, they don’t seem to dislike Facebook tools. I don’t think the platform that developers like will necessarily take of though.

> Most developers I know use MacBooks, my own staff included

I'm just letting you know that we both apparently have very biased samples on this matter.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#74

Post by dgzl »

zsck wrote: post #12

A lot of folks seem to think this kind of technology needs to be marketed or launched the way a hip Silicon Valley startup should be. I understand how the argument that critical mass is the necessary ingredient for success would appeal to people, but it’s not like the Internet succeeded that way. In fact, it’s probably better if foundational technology like this is developed and grown more slowly and deliberately. I…

The best comment I've read all day.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#75

Post by eksemplar »

feanaro wrote: post #73
eksemplar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most developers I know use MacBooks, my own staff included. Most JS developers quite like stuff like react, and most api developers like graphQL. So while developers may dislike Facebook as a company, they don’t seem to dislike Facebook tools. I don’t think the platform that developers like will necessarily take of though.

> Most developers I know use MacBooks, my own staff included I'm just letting you know that we both apparently have very biased samples on this matter.

Yes, people are different. :)

When I was 20 years younger most developers I knew loved Linux. So maybe she plays in. I know I left gentoo for a Mac in 2006 and I’ve never looked back.

I don’t dislike Linux by the way, I just don’t want to spend time configuring things anymore.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#77

Post by edhelas »

By reading the Solid website I was wondering if it was not basically what OpenID tried to offers 10 years ago? https://openid.net/what-is-openid/

> OpenID allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords.

> You may choose to associate information with your OpenID that can be shared with the websites you visit, such as a name or email address. With OpenID, you control how much of that information is shared with the websites you visit.

Is Solid having the NIH syndrome?

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#78

Post by ghinda »

PhilWright wrote: post #23

The problem with your personal data store is that it will be impossible to stop the large companies like Google/Facebook from simply copying and caching a copy of all the data they need to access. You give them permission to handle your email and calendar information and bingo, they have a copy of your entire set of emails and appointments. If you use multiple services from Google/Facebook then they will end up with…

CouchApps had a better vision for the web. You would run a local CouchDB and replicate the app next to your data, rather then giving the app access to your data while hosted somewhere else. It has the added benefit of working offline.

Some sort of cross-domain request blocking could then prevent the app from stealing your data.

Re: How solid is Tim’s plan to redecentralize the web?

#80

Post by shareometry »

cma wrote: post #68
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you prove/trust that they never cache the data? I think the only way is if the "app" actually ran on your PDS (Personal Data Store) instead of somewhere else. Of course that brings other challenges.

Ideally you'd pay them and that would be part of the contract. Otherwise demand a legally enforceable promise (via promissory estoppel).

I also think there is a need to figure out how to enable community-controlled SaaS platforms in addition to this. LibreOffice, for example, has essentially released an online office suite. But it has decided not to actually operate and offer this suite to the public in ready-to-use fashion. From what I understand, it is just too difficult and resource-intensive to do that. So it's up to companies running paid platforms to do it (or you can spin it up on your own server/instance and run it yourself). There's nothing inherently wrong with this. But it seems to me that there's a "next step" to take by figuring out how to enable fully community-controlled platforms so that a project like an open source G Suite (running at scale with an iron-clad privacy guarantee that is backed by community audits) that you can just go create an account on could become a reality one day. This seems like it would require a non-profit organization akin to Mozilla. How great would it be to have a community-controlled non-profit organization operating a trusted cloud platform, perhaps even audited by a group like the EFF? Very challenging, for sure. But it seems humanly possible.
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