[maxton]

I think the headline here is misleading. What they are offering is a prize to decentralize the internet - the actual network to which people connect in order to use the web. Judging from the other comments here, I don't think a lot of people have actually read the article.

IPFS and blockchain are technologies that are built on top of the internet - they assume a network connection already exists.

[kefka]

> IPFS and blockchain are technologies that are built on top of the internet - they assume a network connection already exists.

I wont speak for blockchains. Call them by the boring name as "Append-only databases with a consensus mechanism on what to add, with a proof-of-something to affirm that work of some soft was done".

IPFS is different. They have already planned that IP4 isn't the next thing. Or IP6, or IP8, and on. They created what they call a MultiAddr that encodes the protocol definition to explain to peers and IPFS what protocol stack to use, and then lay IPFS on top of that.

Obviously when a new protocol comes into play, they add a new multiaddr type for the new protocol, and off you go.

[inopinatus]

Well, I also did actually read the article, and the contest website and even the explanatory PDF and I took away a different message. It doesn't appear to specifically require that the result is a network connection in the sense of an IP packet forwarding layer. They're looking, I think, for a services-equivalent outcome for temporarily or permanently disconnected communities, one that is at least gatewayed to the Internet. So the term "decentralise" is perhaps poorly chosen, it seems to me they're hoping for application services (probably including web requests) in a disconnected and/or ad-hoc mesh mode.

My gut feeling is that to create a long-term platform (rather than a point solution) we'd have to refit many extant application protocol stacks with CRDTs and reconceptualised crypto. Although for this contest I'd be imagining something less advanced, maybe a drone-based 4G hotspot loitering over communities with a copy of Wikipedia, a camera trained to detect signs of urgent distress, and a store-and-forward microblogging service like some automated Postman.

Someone should call Elon Musk and Vint Cerf about it, too, because I see many similarities between the outcomes for this and the outcomes for the Interplanetary Internet [1] which has been an ongoing research effort for years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet

[seoseokho]

yeah, I think the competition is looking for tech like the one opengarden had, something of a mesh network where people are connected thru bluetooth and wifi (direct), etc.

[vanderZwan]

So something more similar to the Serval Project?

http://www.servalproject.org/

[imhoguy]

I had the same thought that this is some incentive to prevent big players monopolies with stuff like federated social networks or global distributed search engine without owner. Unfortunately it is only about connectivity to the internet, not only the web.