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> decentralization, like what you describe in cab services, dilutes power. that's it. that's the only reason necessary to explain why it'll never be allowed to stay decentralized (and decentralizing). You have to also look at the other side of the equation, the user. The user often doesn't care about decentralization, but about convenience. And a single, central point to say, order stuff, or food, or a taxi is a convenient thing. Think about say, ordering food by searching by hand for every business within a given radius around you, going to their own website, looking at the offering, and entering your details. And then doing it differently the next time when you feel like eating something else. It's a pain, and a centralized delivery system makes things a lot more convenient. Decentralization often implies choice paralysis. Which Mastodon server do you register on? Which email provider? Which XMPP server? And what if your server of choice isn't being kept up to date, or doesn't support X extension popular service Y wants? A centralized service everyone uses quickly becomes attractive. Another issue in this mix is the prevalence of mobile devices, which are only active for short intervals and otherwise mostly sleep. They can't be true peers on the internet due to this, and need external supporting services. This also leads to centralization. |
This is exactly what I do, and it's completely fine. My desktop web browser can even save my credit card details (but I have mine memorized so I don't do that) and does save my address to make it just as easy as GrubHub or whatever. Three different restaurants have thanked me for using their website rather than the other services that they go through because it's cheaper to them.