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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 22:08:19 JST Aral Balkan

   A decentralised system doesn’t have a flagship instance. Just sayin’.

   We’re not an alternative as long as we adopt their success criteria. Let’s do better.

   #decentralisation #fediverse #SmallWeb

   • neatchee (neatchee@urusai.social)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 23:05:23 JST neatchee

     in reply to

     @aral Hard disagree. This is like saying email isn't decentralized because Gmail exists. Decentralized =/= homogeneously distributed.

     If .social disappeared overnight my server's federated timeline would hardly change much. And another large server would quickly step in to fill their role as "newbies' first instance".

     IMO it's all about any server being replaceable, even the largest "flagship" instance.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 23:05:23 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • neatchee

     @neatchee Enjoy email if Gmail marks you as spam. The very defining characteristic of a decentralised system is uniform power distribution.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 02:30:44 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • jstogdill 🙊

     @jstogdill There’s a difference between designing a system where nodes support 1 person or 1 million people and designing a system where nodes support 1 person.

     The former will always tends towards centralisation.

     The latter maybe has a chance at remaining decentralised based on how easy it is to own a node.

   • jstogdill 🙊 (jstogdill@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 02:30:45 JST jstogdill 🙊

     in reply to

     @aral Idealized free scaling systems are flat and decentralized. Free scaling systems in the real world almost always exhibit emergent hierarchy. 🤷🏻♂️

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 03:38:30 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • jstogdill 🙊

     @jstogdill We can only try :)

   • jstogdill 🙊 (jstogdill@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 03:38:31 JST jstogdill 🙊

     in reply to

     @aral I appreciate what you are doing. I really do. But thirty years of history have taught me to be skeptical of claims for decentralization. The math usually doesn’t work.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 05:31:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • jstogdill 🙊

     @jstogdill If you ever have some time, here’s a talk I gave last year (the tools have come along a bit since then) but the first ten minutes or so is probably a good summary.

     https://ar.al/2024/06/24/small-web-computer-science-colloquium-at-university-of-groningen/

     Basically, you’re right, they could easily be, which is why Domain is designed not to scale, why I’m spending so much time/effort to ensure anyone run their own, why you can easily point any other domain at it after the initial setup and easily migrate to a different server, and why it’s all free software, etc. Not saying some asshat won’t find some bloody way of centralising/sabotaging it but trying my darnest to ensure it’s not in any way interesting for those folks. 🤞

   • jstogdill 🙊 (jstogdill@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 05:31:19 JST jstogdill 🙊

     in reply to

     @aral I’m not completely clear on what you are working on, but as soon as I saw “dns sub domains” in the description I saw 🚩’s

     Who ever owns those top domains holds a position at the top of a hierarchy.

   • jstogdill 🙊 (jstogdill@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Jan-2025 05:31:20 JST jstogdill 🙊

     in reply to

     @aral I agree! I apologize if I came across like a bucket of cold water. But, centralization comes arrives along unexpected vectors. BTC for example seems conceptually decentralized, but things like ownership of mining, the very restricted community with source commit rights etc.