Here are a few notes that came to mind though...
1. For NFTs, some keep their data in IPFS (decentralized file storage) or in the smart contract itself for procedurally generated images. We (as a community) should probably move more to solutions like this over time, since it is indeed more decentralized to build them that way.
2. I agree with the overall point that clients don't behave like full nodes. However, there has been quite a bit of discussion about "light clients" in the crypto community even going back to the early days of Bitcoin/Ethereum, so i wouldn't say it hasn't been an area of focus.
3. I agree there is an overall move toward using platforms. But there is a big difference between using a platform that also owns all the data also (web2) and a platform that is merely a proxy to decentralized data (web3). In the latter, if a platform ever turns evil, people will switch. Not owning the data counts for a lot.
4. There are more options than Infura and Alchemy. Access to simple blockchain data will be relatively commoditized. Which is good for decentralization.
As Moxie points out, it's still difficult to build things in a decentralized way (nascent tools), so you are seeing various apps/companies revert to using more centralized web2 techniques when they run into a hairy technical problem. As a result, there are a lot of "hybrid" web2/web3 apps during this phase of web3 development. That doesn't mean the overall trend is bad though. I think it's great that more and more web3/decentralized technologies are being developed.
I do agree that all networks tend toward centralization over time. Great book on this https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
I don't think crypto is anywhere near this end stage though. We are still seeing a lot of new technology and players enter the space. It's not "already centralized" as much as it is "still using some web2 components".
These points aside, the post is great and I basically agree with the overall premise.
> "What Facebook is doing with meta...is a 'fake metaverse,' unless they actually have a real description as to how we can truly own it," ... "Until then, it's just Disneyland. It's a beautiful place to be, but we probably don't want to really live there. It's not the kind of place that we can actually build a business."
IMHO, this is just a new chapter in an age-old battle between dominant players building "Disneylands" and those who want "The Wild West" to remain, well, wild. This battle been ongoing since the emergence of the earliest information/communication networks. Tim Wu, who has studied the subject extensively, has written a good book about it: "The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires."[a]
[a] https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
It talks at length about Bell, but also other monopolists in our field.
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
Reduce the 'techlash' to another front in the forever culture war without considering how your hacker birthright is under attack.
Associate yourselves with megacorps and money, nice cars and 401(k)s.
Ally with those who hate privacy. [0]
Ally with those who practice psychological manipulation on a global scale. [1]
* Stallman warned us. [2]
* Wu warned us. [3]
* Doctorow warned us. [4]
* Schneier warned us and tried to explain it to everyone. [5]
> Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind.
> On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. [6]
[0] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/zuckerberg-privacy...
[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/8/8/17664580/persuasive-technology-...
[2] Anything the man has written in the last 35 years
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
[4] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
[5] https://www.lawfareblog.com/security-or-surveillance (He has another better article about the start of the new crypto wars but I can't find it)
Americans self-censor tits and genitals, Europeans self-censor violence. Censorship is everywhere.
I think this whole discussion is extremely naive.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
It argues that every information networks in the history- telegraph, telephone, radio, cable - follow the pattern of consolidation and disintegration. The new inventions always had the chance to disrupt the old industry, but our modern network - the Internet - might be an exception. Because the Internet is the master switch of all things digitized.
Antifragile https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Ince...
High Output Management https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/d...
The Master Switch https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
Thinking Fast and Slow https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...
Good book on the topic that HN readers will appreciate is "The Master Switch": https://www.amazon.ca/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empires...
The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner [1] however asserts that the AT&T monopoly allowed Bell Labs to essentially invent the entire information age, but that without the official monopoly, we no longer see the huge investments in basic research, and commensurate major break throughs.
Damn if you do. Damned if you don't.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires...
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/...
Tim Wu wrote the The Master Switch [1], which explains how US media/telecom wound up the way it is today -- how the dominant players came about in various industries (radio, broadcast and cable TV, movies, telephones), and the events that led to the legislative/regulatory environment we have today. The book also explains how IP laws (patents, copyright, etc) have shaped history.
The Master Switch should be required reading before discussing such topics on Hacker News.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires/...
The book analyses monopolies in information businesses, since Western Union, going through Bell and proceding all along to the era of Google and Apple. The end of the book is filled with very good insight on the subject. If this is a topic that interests you as much as it interests me, you should get yourself a copy of this.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSSKpL87_Rs
- http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/06/19/podcast-show-112-...
- http://m.democracynow.org/web_exclusives/1781
- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218189/-HBGary-Pal...
Books illuminate how power works
- http://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Switch-Information-Empires/...
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_Unite... (I haven't read it yet, I've heard good and bad things about the book)
- http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf (I've only skimmed a few sections, but I suspect this is good to understand anarcho-capitalism)
To combat low level surveillance, we need open hardware.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_hardware_pr...
- http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2686
Our own mesh network for community penetration. Mesh networks sort of died off a decade ago, but there is a resurgence.
- http://karmanebula.com/chicagomeshnet/
- https://www.wepay.com/donations/oakland-community-mesh-netwo...
Bitcoin is still growing, and more people are understanding the mechanism behind it. Many altcoins are just Bitcoin ripoffs, but we'll see interesting developments going forward.
- There are many technologies and protocols being built for distributed exchanges, etc. Discussions under bitcointalk.org etc.
Other links
- http://liberationtechnology.stanford.edu/
- https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-J...
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
- http://www.democracynow.org/
Those have just been on my mind recently. Reddit is actually a good source of reading material once you have an account, unfollow stupid subreddits and follow the right ones like politics, worldnews, restorethefourth, libertarian, anarcho_* etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires-Vint...
Amazon Book Description: It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American information industry–from the telephone to radio to film–once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web–the entire flow of American information–come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"?
Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today’s great information powers–Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T–Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. He shows how a battle royale for Internet’s future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
after seeing that video, i much prefer commercials to that style of sponsored programming. when a commercial comes on, you can get up and do something else, change the channel, or mute it. with sponsored programs, everything is so integrated that it makes it hard to ignore.
Telephones, radio broadcasting, and the Internet are all examples of once-decentralized, democratizing forces that were eventually centralized from a corporate control perspective.
I don't know if this will change in the future; it'd require either a very active legal agenda or incredibly engaged citizens/consumers.
"The Master Switch"[1] is a great book on the above.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...