Aral Balkan
Just updated the post I wrote about the Small Web two years ago to include Kitten and Domain:
https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/
(Basically, I want to see a web where every one of us has their own place and where we’re all equals. It’s not a complicated concept. But that doesn’t mean realising it is easy either.)
PS. If you want to support our ongoing work, please fund us. The funding we get from donations/patronage doesn’t pay the rent but it does help.
Aral Balkan
@davew As I’m quite aware ;)
💕
Dave Winer ☕️
i fully agree. all my products are built on that basic idea.
Aral Balkan
@davew Totally agree.
Dave Winer ☕️
btw imho the way to achieve your goal is step by step, not all at once.
bluesky is refreshing because it is so small. that's a big clue. it's multi-user, not focused on individuals. it's just that the scale is such that it's manageable and fun, the way twitter was at first.
it's not that twitter went the wrong way so much as twitter got old and big.
the key is to create constantly refreshing experiences.
i think that would be something facebook would have trouble figuring out btw
Aral Balkan
@davew Let me get the deployment stuff working and I’ll ping you. It’ll make much more sense once I can show you how it works from dev to deployment and it’s at a point where you can play with it yourself. Not far off now. Then the fun stuff begins of what we build on it and what the protocols look like and how nodes communicate. I expect lots of experimentation. Would likely be a good time to do so then if that’s cool with you :)
Dave Winer ☕️
maybe we could collaborate?
Aral Balkan
@rafoo The database you’re replicating a billion times. Let me know if you have any suggestions on how I can explain it in simpler terms because this does seem to be a point of confusion for a lot of people.
rafoo
@aral
"You hear a lot of talk about blockchains and proof of work but this is not what the Small Web is about. Having a billion copies of the same database is not decentralisation. That’s centralisation. If you have a billion people, having a billion – two billion, three billion… – unique databases is decentralisation. In other words, decentralisation without topological decentralisation is bullshit."
I don't understand your point. What is the topological center of a blockchain?
rafoo
@aral
But of course you don't have to take position! Blockchains are not the topic of your post and it's already self-contained. By taking position you would point to a disagreement with some of your readers who otherwise agreed to everything.
Thanks a lot for your article and for all the hard work you do to make this world a better place!
(6/6)
rafoo
@aral
- position 3, danger: a strength of capitalism is its ability to absorb any form of critism, blockchains are yet another example of this and they are turning words such as "decentralization" into a semantic void. They are not fighting against the big web, they are compatible with it.
- position 4, ennemy: blockchains are a scam/ponzy/cult/whatever, they pretend to empower the people but they are designed to do the opposite, concentrate wealth and destroy the environment. (5/6)
rafoo
@aral
- position 1, friendly comparison: blockchains are another attempt at fighting against the big web, they have technical shortcomings regarding data storage so small web follows a different approach which avoids data replication, it's always good to explore various options.
- position 2, failure: blockchains don't work and never will, we need to accept this and move our efforts toward small web. (4/6)
rafoo
@aral
I guess that your point is that there are some fundamental differences between many people sharing the same database and many people sharing the same protocols and tools.
But your post is not about topology, it's not even really about decentralization, it's about democracy, freedom, and fighting against surveillance capitalism. So in my humble opinion, you have a few options to clarify your position regarding blockchains: (3/6)
rafoo
@aral
For example, a subway map shows the topology of a subway network; it does not tell you how much time you will need to travel from point A to point B nor the distance between these points but how the lines are interconnected. In that sense of the word, I would argue that a blockchain is a topologically decentralized network; blockchain nodes are free to join the p2p network by connecting to any previously connected node, sync the database, and leave. (2/6)
rafoo
Sorry for the very long answer.
TL;DR: I claim that blockchains are topologically decentralized. But who cares? If you want to talk about them, why don't you tell what you think of them?
I think that the word "topological" is confusing. The way I understand this word in this context is that we are talking about how things are positioned in space but we are abstracting the distance between them to focus on the general way stuff are organized and connected. (1/6)
Aral Balkan
@rafoo Thanks for the detailed write up, it’s very useful. About to hit the sack but I’ll reply in more depth when I can.
Also, thanks for the kind words :)
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