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Can Mesh Networks Save a Dying Web? (thenextweb.com)
From an anonymous reader:
"The web is dying, but mesh networks could save it," writes open source hacker Andre Staltz. He warns that Facebook, Google, and Amazon plan to "grow beyond browsers, creating new virtual contexts where data is created and shared," and predicts the next wave of walled gardens will be a "social internet" bypassing the web altogether. "The Web may die like most other technologies do, simply by becoming less attractive than newer technologies."
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access to reach the four billion people currently offline, adding that all the tools we need are already in our hands: smartphones, peer-to-peer protocols, and mesh networks. His vision? "Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace... Browsers can be made to work like that, and although it's a small tweak to how the web works, it has massive effects on social structures in cyberspace... Now that we have experience with some of the intricacies of the social web, we can reinvent it to put people first without intermediate companies... We can actually beat the tech giants at this game by simply giving local and regional connectivity to people in developing countries. With mobile apps that are built mesh-first, the smartphones would make up self-organizing self-healing mobile ad-hoc networks... In internet-less regions, there is potential for scaling quickly, and through that, we can spawn a new industry around peer-to-peer wireless mesh networks."
He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols, followed by adoption on smartphones (and then a new wave of apps) -- plus a migration of existing web content to the new protocols, "to fix the overutilization of the wirenet and the underutilization of airnets, bringing balance to the wire-versus-air dichotomy, providing choice in how data should travel in each case...But it can only happen if the web takes a courageous step towards its next level."
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access to reach the four billion people currently offline, adding that all the tools we need are already in our hands: smartphones, peer-to-peer protocols, and mesh networks. His vision? "Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace... Browsers can be made to work like that, and although it's a small tweak to how the web works, it has massive effects on social structures in cyberspace... Now that we have experience with some of the intricacies of the social web, we can reinvent it to put people first without intermediate companies... We can actually beat the tech giants at this game by simply giving local and regional connectivity to people in developing countries. With mobile apps that are built mesh-first, the smartphones would make up self-organizing self-healing mobile ad-hoc networks... In internet-less regions, there is potential for scaling quickly, and through that, we can spawn a new industry around peer-to-peer wireless mesh networks."
He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols, followed by adoption on smartphones (and then a new wave of apps) -- plus a migration of existing web content to the new protocols, "to fix the overutilization of the wirenet and the underutilization of airnets, bringing balance to the wire-versus-air dichotomy, providing choice in how data should travel in each case...But it can only happen if the web takes a courageous step towards its next level."
his dumbass is mixing up layer 2 and layer 7
news for nerds my ass, more like stories from idiot millienials
The promise of the internet: decentralized information.
The reality: 90% of the traffic goes to FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) monopolists.
The only solution: get away from a single source of access, and to one where we can route around the herd and its chosen megacorps.
Alternative Right.
He warns that Facebook, Google, and Amazon plan to "grow beyond browsers ..." ... and predicts the next wave of walled gardens will be a "social internet" bypassing the web altogether.
You know that the Web is more than just social media and online shopping sites - right?
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access ... He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols,
So... using other networks, but not "the internet"? You know that "the internet" is a network of networks, perhaps even different kinds of networks - right?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For fucks sake, who thinks this is viable? The internet ONLY worked because by the time it reached end users, it cost little time to set up and offered a lot of utility. Meshnets are, from an end-user perspective, far worse.
"How do we save the web from the internet?" The article asks. Well, if you want to save the web from the internet, you have to start with physical infrastructure at near-parity to the current multibillion dollar one. And jerking off to the ideology of decentralisation won't get you there. More, end users won't get you there either, and that's the real problem. In some countries, population is distributed so sparsely that even with massive end user adoption - unlikely, because, again, in the early days of developing infrastructure, meshnets give them fuck and all - that there would be utterly incredible bottlenecking issues.
It's not viable, and the question that it's predicated on isn't even really meaningful, since the web is in the same class as these hypothetical wholly-proprietary walled gardens: a service executed across the internet, and not the internet itself. Nothing that google and facebook do changes the fact that they operate on a layer above the one the author contends is the problem.
But don't confuse the base internet pipes with those companies that sit on top of it.
Ajit Pai and his FCC voted along party lines to allow ISPs to perform exactly such confusion in the United States.
From the piece of drivel written
In other words, the internet economy simply isn’t ready for a scenario where IPv6 is used everywhere and NAT is abandoned. We are stuck with what we have.
That is exactly the crap I hear that stops IPv6 migration. This person literally is the reason why they are lamenting IPv6's slow adoption. But that said, so we have this technical argument for why the "web" is dying, even though it's an Internet argument. But let's backtrack to this little gem.
The advent of NAT routers also allowed for that intermediate computer to become a guardian and protect other computers from some dangers of the open internet.
If that's what you are doing, you are doing it mostly wrong. That's not a function of NAT, that's a flipping function of *routing*. You can literally have all kinds of globally addressable IP addresses on systems, connect them, and then have 100% of them respond to 0% of the incoming requests. You literally do not need NAT for that and if that's the sole reason you are using NAT (to be more secure), you more than likely shouldn't have your job. That's not saying NAT doesn't have a place or anything, but that is me saying that if your rationale is solely for security, you will find lots of folks that will tell you otherwise. Again, NAT has a place, time, and use, but this person writing the piece is missing every single point of that. Now I know everyone is going to foam or spout with their opinion on NAT, but you have to snap out of it because, remember these are "Internet" issues not "web" issues and as you keep reading, if you aren't keeping that point in your head, you'll just get sucked into this argument of "NAT is awesome v. F*** NAT!" So I digress, let's actually continue.
It also meant that some computers were first-class citizens on the internet, while other computers were subordinates. In addition, the scarcity of IP addresses caused them to be considered valuable assets, and so it became a business opportunity. IP addresses are being sold so that some computers can become first-class citizens on the internet.
I had no actual problem with this point until that last part I highlighted. That's when my brain snapped out of it and was like, "Wait, this has absolutely nothing to do with why Facebook, Google, et al are these massive black holes." This person is literally making this overly complicated, but weak attempt to dumb down an argument about the web, on technical merits that have nothing to do with what reasonable people would call "the web". And that point became even more clear here.
As a consequence, the internet has allowed intermediate computers to rule. These are like parasites that have grown too large to remove without killing the host. The technical flaw that favored intermediate computers prefigured a world where middlemen business models thrive. Google and Facebook connect consumers with advertisement publishers and charge fees for each ad.
Oh Mother of Stars that's eight hundred times pi radians of all kinds of wrong!! IPv4's short comings have **NOTHING** to do with why the big boys on the Internet are who they are. It is at this point your brain should be saying, "This person has about as much clue as to what they are saying as a canine on the ISS has of managing the station." I assure you it does not get better as it goes.
Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace. This way the link to an image can be something like QaPdNnDWRLF1b — a so-called hash of the image, summarizing it — instead of mywebsite.com/pic.jpeg so that even if mywebsite.com servers are removed,
Except there is this funny thing called hundreds of vacant square miles between all the Metropolitan Areas with high populations.
So I suppose each big city could have it's 'mesh' and there could be some 'bridges' between each mesh. I'd call that an ISP.