Decentralization for the web

Posted Jul 30, 2015 14:22 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Decentralization for the web by voltagex
Parent article: Decentralization for the web

It sounds cool as hell.

Decentralization is the key to sustainability, but going from existing centralized models to newer ones is hard as hell. I am looking forward to the day when companies like Facebook are as relevant to the modern world as Prodigy. (which makes me somewhat sad, however, because as a technology company Facebook is phenomenal. The business model just kinda sucks.)

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 9, 2015 8:52 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (7 responses)

I personally would like to see decentralization, but as long as it is properly optional I'm quite good. Facebook can continue to have a business in such a world - as long as it adheres to open, federated standards which allow anybody to run a Facebook-like service which connects. Something like Facebook supporting the Diaspora protocol would bring that close.

Same with Dropbox, Google drive etc - if they'd support something like the <a href="https://owncloud.org/blog/federated-cloud-sharing-in-ownc...">draft Federation API</a> we proposed it would be fine - they can have their business model for the people who don't need/care for the privacy aspect (and that's the majority, after all) while those who do can run their own server.

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 9, 2015 15:45 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (6 responses)

Organizations like Facebook and Google can't support any real decentralization as it goes directly against their business needs. They do support Federation, but only as long as everyone federates against them and they ultimately get the tracking data. It's the same for Security, they only support it as far as it takes to keep customers and keep other organizations out of their revenue stream, so they support always-on TLS to keep ISPs from inserting their own tracking cookies, but not any ad/tracking blocking that would affect their own ability to gather information.

Google and Facebook aren't your allies here, they are the competition, MS and Apple have their own revenue streams which don't involve user tracking so they might be a fair-weather friend but if it comes between the tracking revenue they do make and true security and federation on the web, they are going to fall on the side of revenue, it's what the people who run businesses do.

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 10, 2015 19:23 UTC (Mon) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (5 responses)

> Organizations like Facebook and Google can't support any real decentralization as it goes directly against their business needs.

If anybody wants a proof of that, they should look at what happened with the XMPP support by Google Talk. Google Talk still speaks XMPP but it is no longer part of the federated XMPP world, exactly like Whatsapp. Google withdraw support from GTalk to push Google+ and Google Hangout. The official casus belli was that Hangout required functionality not provided by the XMPP/Jingle protocol and/or that the federation was exploited by commercial parties like Microsoft and their Lync/Outlook.com.

http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2013/05/hangouts-wont-hang...

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 10, 2015 20:02 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

There's another reason: XMPP is a protocol designed by drunk monkeys. Supporting federation was not complicated and provided little benefits to actual customers.

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 11, 2015 18:15 UTC (Tue) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (3 responses)

> There's another reason: XMPP is a protocol designed by drunk monkeys.

Saying "XMPP isn't a well designed protocol" would had been enough to express your opinion. There is no need to insult the people behind the protocol.

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 11, 2015 18:19 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

> Saying "XMPP isn't a well designed protocol" would had been enough to express your opinion.
Not unless you were involved in a rollout of complicated XMPP-based infrastructure.

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 11, 2015 20:24 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

To borrow an expression, XMPP is the worst option, except for all the others.

More seriously, what alternatives are there? SIP/SIMPLE, which make XMPP look downright sane in comparison?

Decentralization for the web

Posted Aug 12, 2015 0:31 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_%28communication_pro... is quite nice.

I think its very later arrival was caused by the fact that XMPP is just barely adequate for 1-to-1 messages and the whole industry has stagnated as a result.