[gwbas1c]

I've experimented in this space. The biggest challenge, IMO, is that we don't have good federated user authentication.

What do I mean? Pretty much all major social networks need to re-invent user authentication, and then taking your profile from one social network to another is a very inconsistent user experience. Can I "friend" a Linkedin user via Facebook? If I sign into other sites via Facebook, they often demand that I enter personal info that I don't want to enter.

A decentralized social network needs to be built upon a better authentication system.

What we really need is something like government-backed user profiles. Imagine if the US government provided a government-backed user profile. Now imagine that web sites had to allow interaction with government profiles without registering, providing email addresses, ect.

That's the point where a decentralized social network could start working. Otherwise, the social networks end up needing to perform services that really are the government's job.