[lorean_victor]

thanks for taking the time to read through it regardless. I wrote this as a brain dump, and shared it mostly with the intent of learning more about the topic (which thanks to this thread, I already have), so I feel it is ok if it doesn't change the life of billions of people.

the last part of the post, however, is dedicated to assessing whether such an idea would have any real bearing on, as you've put it, "the population", or not. I've tried to list potential benefits to the average user, if such a decentralised platform was ever built. since you are interested more in such evaluations rather than technical contemplations, I'd like to hear your feedback specifically on that part.

https://gist.github.com/loreanvictor/bddd8824c744024d338e935...

[ericyd]

I'm not sure I have strong feelings about it, but here are a few thoughts:

1. I think a more universal content aggregation / discovery tool would be beneficial for many people. Google might be the analog that comes to mind. This makes me wonder how such an aggregator/search tool would operate in a decentralized way. Would each user/node be responsible for maintaining its own index? My question to you is how does this differ from current centralized aggregators and search tools?

2. Regarding distribution vs. publication: its an interesting point that you could separate the two, but I personally believe this benefit would be moot for most people since they would be unlikely to self-publish content. My view is that most individuals will continue to use centralized services, regardless of the underlying protocol, due to a combination of convenience, ease, and cost. Like you identified, unless there is some critical mass of people self-publing and self-distributing, I'm not sure I see a tangible benefit here.

Also, mea culpa, I sometimes forget that the author might read my response and perhaps my language in my initial post was too strong, I hope I did not offend.

[lorean_victor]

thanks for the thoughts.

1. I suspect something like Google, indexing feeds instead of websites, and also mapping what is a reaction to what, perhaps. something that makes a bit suspicious about the potential of this though, is the fact that we've had nice rss readers for so many years and none have embarked on something like this, although I think there was a huge potential if they could properly index youtube channels / podcasts for example (all already on rss). would love to find someone in feedly or inoreader teams to ask more.

2. its not only about self-publication / self-distribution though. this is already affecting normal users, to the extent that it resulted in a few break-aways from twitter (none successful of course), and even the whole twitter management changing and attempting to capitalise on the desire. none of this is enough (or is ever going to be enough) to really force big social media to meaningfully change on its own, but situations where we have a stable market dynamic that constantly produces disgruntled costumers who are still locked in the system without much choice, the change typically ends up happening through regulatory intervention (I mean that's their job), so yeah this point might be more relevant from a regulatory perspective rather than a direct market force.

and no worries. if I wanted only nice comments I would've only shared the post with friends or on linkedin / threads. the value, for me, is in these discussions, even if the language sometimes gets a bit spicy.

[ericyd]

Interesting idea that it might have more impact on regulation than as an intrinsic market force. I might not fully understand the idea or implications fully. Seems like it might be worth dwelling on more and fleshing out more fully as you continue to investigate this topic.