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by imiric 1263 days ago
The current decentralized trend ("web3", etc.) becoming mainstream is a pipe dream only tech enthusiasts care about. The sad reality is that it has very slim chances of ever gaining mass adoption. The general public and non-technical users couldn't care less about owning and managing their data, running their own services, paying for services, and everything that entails. Even if they're aware that their privacy is being violated and that their personal data is sold on shady adtech markets, they see it as a cost worth paying for in exchange for the services they get for "free".

So even if all these technical solutions to problems only technical users care about become as easy to use for laypeople as modern web browsers are, the general public just won't care about it.

I've long believed that the blame for this lies mostly on early WWW architects. If the focus from the very start had been on sharing content as much as it was on consuming it, and user-friendly tools analogous to the web browser had been built, then the general public would be educated that the web works by being in control of your data, and sharing it selectively with specific people, companies, or the world. ISPs would be forced to deliver symmetrical connections to enable this, centralized services would be much less influential, and the web landscape would look much different today.

This was actually planned as a second phase in the original HyperText proposal[1], but was never completed for some reason. I'd be very interested to know what happened to this effort. If someone has insider knowledge, or can contact TBL, I'd be very grateful.

Alas, it's too late for this now. The centralized web is how most people experience the "internet", and that train has no chance of stopping.

[1]: https://www.w3.org/Proposal.html
1 comments
alexvoda 1263 days ago
I fully agree with what you wrote but I just want to mention that, as you also imply, the ideas behind "the current decentralized trend ("web3", etc.)", really aren't new. They just build on older ideas with regards to decentralization.

There are many ideas that fit under decentralization: torrents, the fediverse, crypto, even the old idea of the semantic web (because it was about standardized formats for metadata and carrying that metadata with the data instead of having it siloed in a central entity).

All of the hype around web3 really is only about crypto, because web3 is a marketable term for speculators.

Currently I am very cautiously hopeful about what the hype surrounding Mastodon (caused by Twitters self-immolation) will lead to.

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