[nindwen]

While decentralized protocols don't entirely prevent centralization, they're still better than if the protocol was centralized. While Facebook and Google exist, we can still make websites. While most people use Gmail, we can still run our own mail servers.

Even if 90% of users use the centralized service, the protocol being open gives enormous value to the remaining 10%. And as long as the 10% keep the protocol open, the _possibility_ of decentralization can keep the centralized services honest.

We only need to keep the googles of the world from completely shutting down the open protocols. I mean, even that can get hard, but it's still entirely reasonable goall.

[bilbo0s]

>as long as the 10% keep the protocol open, the _possibility_ of decentralization can keep the centralized services honest.

This is the avenue we should be traveling. This is what makes the internet a better place.

[christiansakai]

Yup this is my thinking as well. Also this opens up for smaller niche communities to entirely setup whatever they want. I.e, their own social media, their own youtube, etc. Small rural communities can setup their own email server, chat, without dependencies on Slack or Google.

[mc3]

Dropping into the conversation late, to say that this is right - but - the danger is that Google controls the defacto browser and defacto web standards as well as search, and yes a large chunk of email, the biggest video hosting service and mobile operating system! So in reality I think the open standards will erode in practical terms to be Google standards over time, unless something is actively done to prevent that.

[dorgo]

>Even if 90% of users use the centralized service, the protocol being open gives enormous value to the remaining 10%

It's more than that. The 90% benefit greatly from the openess too. All the @gmail.com can talk to @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com or @whatever.com. Try to get your whatsapp to talk to my telegram app or some other chat app.

It's a pain to don't have whatsapp and only a small inconvenience for whatsapp-users to have to deal with somebody like me. But it's my way to point out what is broken about chat apps.