Slashdot Mirror
Can We Decentralize the Web? (computing.co.uk)
This week the Internet Archive hosted an amazing Decentralized Web Summit, which united the makers who want to build a web "that's locked open for good." [Watch the videos here.] Vint Cerf was there, as was the technical product development leader for Microsoft's own decentralized identity efforts, several companies building the so-called punk rock Internet, "along with a handful of venture capitalists looking for opportunities." One talk even included Mike Judge, the creator of HBO's Silicon Valley, which recently included the decentralized web in its ongoing storyline.
Computing highlighted remarks by Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, and Mitchell Baker, the chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation. The ideology of the web's early pioneers, according to Baker, was free software and open source. "Money was considered evil," she said. So when companies came in to commercialize the internet, the original architects were unprepared. "Advertising is the internet's original sin," Kahle told the packed room. "Advertising is winner-take-all, and that's how we've ended up with centralization and monopolies."
At the conference, attendees presented utopian visions of how the future of the internet could look. Civil, a new media startup, proposed crowd-supported journalism using cryptocurrency micro-payments. Mastodon, a decentralized and encrypted social network, was commonly referenced as an alternative to Twitter. As Facebook and Google continue to monopolize the digital advertising ecosystem -- recent estimates say that the two companies control over 70% of digital advertising spending globally -- the promise of a decentralized web, free from the shackles of advertiser demands is fun to imagine.
Tristan Harris, who leads the Center for Humane Technology, "just hopes the pioneers of the new internet turn around to face the potential negative externalities of their products before it's too late," arguing that "If we decentralize the systems we already have without an honest recognition of the social harms that are being created -- mental health [issues], loneliness, addiction, polarization, conspiracy theories... then we've decentralized social harms and we can't even track them." But Tim Berners-Lee "remains hopeful".
"There's massive public awareness of the effects of social networks and the unintended consequences," he told Computing. "There's a huge backlash from people wanting to control their own data"... Meanwhile, there's the rise of "companies which respect user privacy and do not do anything at all with user data" (he namechecks social network MeWe to which he acts as an advisor), open-source collaborations like the data portability project (DTP) led by tech giants, and his own project Solid which is "turning from an experiment into a platform and the start of a movement".
"These are exciting times," said Berners-Lee.
Computing highlighted remarks by Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, and Mitchell Baker, the chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation. The ideology of the web's early pioneers, according to Baker, was free software and open source. "Money was considered evil," she said. So when companies came in to commercialize the internet, the original architects were unprepared. "Advertising is the internet's original sin," Kahle told the packed room. "Advertising is winner-take-all, and that's how we've ended up with centralization and monopolies."
At the conference, attendees presented utopian visions of how the future of the internet could look. Civil, a new media startup, proposed crowd-supported journalism using cryptocurrency micro-payments. Mastodon, a decentralized and encrypted social network, was commonly referenced as an alternative to Twitter. As Facebook and Google continue to monopolize the digital advertising ecosystem -- recent estimates say that the two companies control over 70% of digital advertising spending globally -- the promise of a decentralized web, free from the shackles of advertiser demands is fun to imagine.
Tristan Harris, who leads the Center for Humane Technology, "just hopes the pioneers of the new internet turn around to face the potential negative externalities of their products before it's too late," arguing that "If we decentralize the systems we already have without an honest recognition of the social harms that are being created -- mental health [issues], loneliness, addiction, polarization, conspiracy theories... then we've decentralized social harms and we can't even track them." But Tim Berners-Lee "remains hopeful".
"There's massive public awareness of the effects of social networks and the unintended consequences," he told Computing. "There's a huge backlash from people wanting to control their own data"... Meanwhile, there's the rise of "companies which respect user privacy and do not do anything at all with user data" (he namechecks social network MeWe to which he acts as an advisor), open-source collaborations like the data portability project (DTP) led by tech giants, and his own project Solid which is "turning from an experiment into a platform and the start of a movement".
"These are exciting times," said Berners-Lee.
He's a proponent of DRM on the web and shouldn't be given a platform at a conference like this.
Tor is already a decentralized web, and it needs a central list of initial nodes (either from the website or included in the download) to start up.
It's also harder to use then simply going to google.com, slashdot.org, or some other website which can be easily remembered.
Long answer, the same: no, we can't. Everybody who matters wants centralization. Centralization means better efficiency and shareholders love that. Centralization means better control, and governments love that. Centralization means simplicity, and the overwhelming majority of users love that. If you could build a decentralized system, only a minority would go there and the government would stop you, if big money doesn't sue you into the gutter first. We lost the internet, and it's time we accept that and move on.
1. Decentralised DNS. The DNS crew have shown they cannot be trusted to 100%, which is a really bad thing when it comes to free speech online. Perhaps a bitcoin style ledger could be of help here.
2. A decentralised social network solution with monetisation options. Think about it, Youtube and Facebook rolled into one for all sorts of content imaginable, a pay-as-you-go buffet where you can choose whether to pay with your eyeballs, your time, or your money. Awesome stuff if it ever get started.
3. The realisation that the web of the nineties, where everyone and their grandma could make a website, is pretty much dead. And no, I do not mourn those Geocities webpages, I rather mourn the fact that it is way too hard to get stuff online without selling your firstborn son to one of the big dragons (Google, Facebook etc).
Guess I'll keep dreaming of these things forever though...
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Decentralization also means running your own hardware and software. Hardware is a small expense. Software is a big challenge for the vast majority of the population (let's call them our friends & family). Our challenge is to make the software so easy that the average facebook user could deploy it as easily as installing the facebook app on their iPhone/android.
As far as software goes, there's plenty:
Cloud storage (nextcloud, owncloud, etc)
Collaboration platform (rocketchat)
Mail (dovecot/postfix, kolab, zimbra, etc)
Streaming (plex, kodi, ampache, etc)
etc..
1. Decentralised DNS. The DNS crew have shown they cannot be trusted to 100%, which is a really bad thing when it comes to free speech online. Perhaps a bitcoin style ledger could be of help here.
2. A decentralised social network solution with monetisation options. Think about it, Youtube and Facebook rolled into one for all sorts of content imaginable, a pay-as-you-go buffet where you can choose whether to pay with your eyeballs, your time, or your money. Awesome stuff if it ever get started.
3. The realisation that the web of the nineties, where everyone and their grandma could make a website, is pretty much dead. And no, I do not mourn those Geocities webpages, I rather mourn the fact that it is way too hard to get stuff online without selling your firstborn son to one of the big dragons (Google, Facebook etc).
Guess I'll keep dreaming of these things forever though...
All fine and good.
In an attempt to start a meaningful dialogue, how do you feel about The Daily Stormer having a website available on the internet, having a site name entry in the distributed DNS system, and having a home page and videos on your decentralized social network?(*)
This is the choice you will have to make when implementing the next internet: in order to make it truly open for everyone, you will have to accept that there are people whose opinion you don't agree to and who have just as much right to free speech. Management of such a system has to be completely decoupled from mob rule, else we'll be back to where we are now.
A completely open internet would allow distasteful speech and people you don't agree with to have a voice.
Are you willing to take the bad with the good?
(*) For those who don't know, Daily Stormer is an actual nazi website that lost their original website name after registrars dropped them as customers while keeping the original name, disallowing them from using the name at another registrar.