Post

Robin Berjon
@robin.berjon.com

"If your decentralised protocol is missing features, the market will add them with centralisation." — @goat.navy *This*: - is why why the web was captured; - is why email became concentrated; - is why ActivityPub, as defined today, isn't capture-resistant.

73 reposts278 likes

Everett Bogue 🔵
@evbogue.com

I mean really distributed messaging starts with sane signing and content addressible storage. Mastodon totally fails at this, and Bluesky needs some tweaks for it to work right.

apenwarr
@apenwarr.ca

This is a true statement, but I think we have to also add that no protocol exists that isn’t missing features, which is why centralization always gets added. Including to blockchain stuff.

Robin Berjon
@robin.berjon.com

I agree but I think that framing it that way is unhelpful because it's static. The problem isn't about a protocol being complete, it's about it being complete enough faster enough than the adversaries. That's what I tried to point to in berjon.com/capture-resi....

berjon.comCapture ResistanceFor the longest time, word was that the Web would free the world; now, it seems as if most of the world wants to liberate the Web. I believe that we can tackle decentralisation and antitrust more effe...
Ignacio Castro
@ignactro.eurosky.social

If centralisation fills in missing features in decentralised protocols & no protocol is complete: how to slice/layer so each protocol can be more easily complete within its niche seems part of the answer --guessing that architectural view made the Internet resilient to (instant) centralisation

apenwarr
@apenwarr.ca

Agreed. We should remind ourselves that the Internet, and the web itself, remain effectively uncaptured and decentralized. Users have *decided* to use centralized things built on top of them. We can now try to enshrine capture-resistant clones of the good parts (basically the Bluesky strategy).

apenwarr
@apenwarr.ca

I enjoyed that article, thanks! The counterpoint is: signal.org/blog/the-eco... which reminds us centralized systems have faster evolution feedback loops. We can build capture-resistant systems, but convincing consumers they are preferable to fast-evolving systems is a tough sell.

signal.orgReflections: The ecosystem is movingAt Open Whisper Systems, we’ve been developing open source “consumer-facing” software for the past four years. We want to share some of the things we’ve learned while doing it. As a software developer...
Robin Berjon
@robin.berjon.com

I'm well familiar with that blog post and it makes important points but doesn't analyse them closely enough IMHO. He's operating on the assumption of a monolithic client for the protocol, so that you have a point of control — just like email, browsers, chat. But that's one (bad) model!