To really be an anti-Facebook, this service would need to be decentralized. And it's a perfect example of a service that should be decentralized by design. There's no earthly reason to have this live on one server somewhere, except if you want to track people and show them ads.
You mean "federated" (each node has its set of data and controls what to share with the others upon request) more than "decentralized" (there is single set of data that is replicated and handled by multiple nodes, each of which may have all the data or part of it).
I've never heard of that term before... is there a good resource for reading up on federated servers/networks/design (I'm not even sure which of those three terms is the most appropriate here).
The StackExchange network is an example of federation. All of the various sites have unique userbases and data sets, with a system for authorizing and trusting a user's identity between the lot of them.
> There's no earthly reason to have this live on one server somewhere
Except, of course, running, maintaining and developing the thing, all of which are quite earthly.
> And it's a perfect example of a service that should be decentralized by design.
Except that would make it an order or two of magnitude more complicated, but that's irrelevant next to random people on the Internet armchair quarterbacking. And, of course, procuring a server and installing a node on it is much, much easier than just signing up on a website and inviting your neighbors. It's the perfect example, I can't think of any reason why they didn't do it that way. Oh, of course, advertising. That's it. Sorry, never mind me.
I agree wholeheartedly. If a decentralized social network were easy to implement well, someone would have done it by now (Diaspora is the only thing close to this I can think of).
There is no relation between decentralisation and advertisment. Any node can serve you ads.
Also, in a decentralised network, it may be even harder to keep control over data. Example: It is easier to hold Google accountable for data in their servers than users of BitTorrent for their data.
> There is no relation between decentralisation and advertisment. Any node can serve you ads.
There is a difference between "track you and show you ads" and just "show you ads." A print newspaper can show you ads.
> Example: It is easier to hold Google accountable for data in their servers than users of BitTorrent for their data.
Not really. If Google or Facebook has your data but your "friends" have access to it, your friends also have your data. They can copy it and keep it indefinitely. Removing the middle man doesn't reduce your own control, it only removes the middle man's control.
> There is a difference between "track you and show you ads" and just "show you ads." A print newspaper can show you ads.
And a federation of networks can get together and decide to share what data they have about you with each other.
> Not really. If Google or Facebook has your data but your "friends" have access to it, your friends also have your data. They can copy it and keep it indefinitely. Removing the middle man doesn't reduce your own control, it only removes the middle man's control.
Could you clarify this? I'm really not sure what you mean, sorry.
> And a federation of networks can get together and decide to share what data they have about you with each other.
Federation means competition. You can choose providers you trust and who agree not to do that. Or you can run your own, which in a properly designed system shouldn't require more than some free software, a domain name and a machine to point it at. Which ordinary people might buy off the shelf as an appliance that plugs into your modem.
> Could you clarify this? I'm really not sure what you mean, sorry.
OK, so right now you have a funny cat video, so you upload it to YouTube and then post the link on Facebook. So Facebook can tell who you've shared the link with and who has clicked on it, YouTube can tell what you've uploaded and who has watched it, and anyone you've shared it with (or, in the absence of authentication, anyone in the world) can download it and save a copy on their hard drive.
In the alternative, you upload the funny cat video to some distributed CDN thing like Freenet or BitTorrent, and then your friends get the link in something that resembles an RSS reader that gets its feeds from something that distributes messages how email does.
So anyone you've shared the video with can still download it and keep it but there is nobody who has the complete list of everyone you've shared it with and there is no third party middle man who can keep track of everyone who is looking at it.
Whoever is doing the uploading can still tell who is downloading but presumably these are your friends who are not keeping permanent records rather than some corporation bent on converting every aspect of your personality into a data set for selling hotdogs and health insurance.
You're assuming the providers are allowed to see what you post. They don't even need to see the destination. The sensible way to do message routing is: You encrypt a message to your provider which contains the destination's provider and a message encrypted to the destination's provider, which itself contains the destination and a message encrypted to the destination. If the providers aren't colluding they won't even be able to tell who is communicating.
Yeah, as troubling as Facebook is, are you literally suggesting the W3C could do a better job running a social network via a federated protocol than Facebook with a centralized one?
That SMTP and XMPP exist are just more proof for the value of Facebook (and to be clear: I hate FB and don't have an account, but I still see that it has value). SMTP has massive amounts of users, likely more than FB, and yet FB still exists because SMTP . XMPP is a good protocol, and yet no one is using it because federation makes it too hard for these things to work in the market.
IETF maintains the SMTP specs, yet their mail server operation is one tiny (set of) server(s) among many.
The idea with federated systems is that the standard body isn't _running_ the network. So no, I wouldn't expect W3C to run a social network, federated or not. Their own node, maybe.
That's kind of a matter of semantics, I wasn't sure how to say it properly. "Directing" a social network? I understand they aren't literally paying for the nodes, but defining the protocol gives you quite a lot of power and centralization.
It's a multi-stakeholder model. In the end a "social networking protocols working group" would primarily consist of delegates from all social network operators that implement the standards.
> There is no relation between decentralisation and advertisment. Any node can serve you ads.
But there's no point in showing ads in a decentralized network since the proceeds would belong to no one. Unless someone controls the client application/interface, but then it's not entirely decentralized.
Of course there is. If you need to pay for a node, showing ads may be the only way to finance it. And I also can have a node just for showing ads to a network. Imagine Facebook as the network and the members as peers. There are many peers who just advertise something.
I'm not totally sure. Centralized services usually seem much lower friction than decentralized ones, and that can be important getting people to actually use a service.
However the sign up process for NextDoor seems hard, so friction might not be a good reason. It might be hard to keep sign up rigorous without a central vetting body though.
Sign-up is actually a LOT more low-friction than I expected. You verify your phone number (which takes about ten seconds), and if your billing address matches, you're signed up and address-verified immediately.
It's a little more complicated if you're billing addr is not your home addr (and you don't want to put in your credit card), but my guess would be that phone-number verification works in the 95% general case. Given how quick and easy sign-up is, I'd imagine that the friction argument is still rather relevant.
Not difficult in the slightest. I was able to sign up to Nextdoor within a minute of visiting the site (just now). They offer the option of calling your phone which has your billing address in order to verify you live in the neighborhood.
Would there be risks (to the online community) in putting control in the hands of whoever set up the web app? That is, unless it was significantly redesigned to remove that as an issue.
Do you have a reason why decentralization is necessary? The only two reasons you cite seem to be not tracking people and not showing people ads, both of which regularly happen on decentralized networks.
