[fseek]

I find it shocking that so many people rely on a single (centralized) source for their communication. The internet was built to be de-centralized (see how DNS, email, tcp/ip works), but now we are moving to a centralized, unreliable means of communication..

[stingraycharles]

Haven't we been doing that for ages with things like MSN/AOL messenger? Isn't this just an extra means of communication, instead of a replacement as you're suggesting?

[dlsspy]

Before there was ICQ, AIM, YIM, and AOL instant messenger, there was talk, zephyr and other distributed instant message systems that worked just fine over the internet.

After, there's XMPP.

[steveklabnik]

Most people have no idea that DNS, email, or tcp/ip are decentralized (or even exist).

[sewerhorse]

Shocking, really? The world will not fall apart if I'm not able to see Robert Scoble's foursquare check-ins any longer.

[bobbyi]

All of the posts on twitter don't come from some single source. There are millions of people posting things.

[afterz]

But there is a single company in charge of the service... if that company disappears or the company servers shut off, your messages will disappear (just as it happens when twitter shuts off).

[fizx]

Don't worry, it will get federated pretty soon. Remember when AOL owned instant messaging?

[staunch]

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but IM is about as far from distributed as it gets. There are only 3-4 big players in a given country, on the high side. Better than Twitter maybe, but just barely.