[setr]

Decentralization mainly grants flexibility/customization/freedom, but generally you don’t really care about this — freedom only really matters when you can’t do the thing you’re trying to do.

If everything is already covered without such freedom, or you don’t care about what’s not covered (or failed to conceive it), then you don’t really mind having the freedom or not. It doesn’t change much.

Gmail is a good email client — email being decentralized is only relevant to me if I wanted to get off gmail to go to say fastmail. But if I didn’t, what do I care whether the underlying protocol is centralized or not?

[bee_rider]

> freedom only really matters when you can’t do the thing you’re trying to do.

Disagree, or at least think there’s a need to clarify. This makes it look like a freedom is only occasionally relevant.

This kind of freedom derived from decentralization also exists as a persistent threat against bad behavior. If users can leave and bring their stuff with them, that constrains the choices that the platform can even consider.

Attempts to centralize should be seen as strategic attempts to change the landscape in a way that makes it easier to exploit users.