Recently, I’ve been learning more about this subject. Today I came across the Decentralization Scoring System and it slapped me across the face.
Realistically, more people need to self-host, or at the very least we need more mon-and-pop style datacenters. The foundational protocols of the Internet inherently make the web decentralized, but most would rather offload hardware costs and, more importantly, security, to those more knowledgeable. Not that I blame them, as running one’s own hardware is extremely time intensive, nevermind power and equipment costs, but it’s no wonder that conglomerates have stepped up to fill that role (nevermind economies of scale). Yet, this is how we’ve fallen into the situation we are in now.
I’ll second the mom-and-pop thing. It’s a lot more realistic than the average Joe having to configure and manage things, but still will kill monopolies and associated fuckery dead. That’s kind of how Lemmy instances work, although I only know for sure my own is on a private box.
It’s a bit harder for heavy things like streaming, though.
Indeed, I think the entire idea that needs focus is distributing away from a handful of large corps, although I don’t see streaming going in that direction largely due to IP rights for content, not necessarily bandwidth and resources. Many streaming platforms as I understand already have their content distributed through CDNs that are geographically dispersed as to ease network load, though they retain control over that hardware. I’m proposing providing more options for your average joe website than on something controlled by the likes of Amazon and Microsoft.
Risk is also a factor re: self hosting.
- You’re exposing potential attack vectors, which is particularly concerning if self hosting = home hosting.
- Also with home hosting, it’s probably against your ISP’s TOS. It is for mine (I actually read it!). Will they do anything? Probably not. But it’s a risk.
- You could face legal issues if someone posts illegal content, since you’re hosting it. Even unwittingly.
Those concerns are what stop me. Because I otherwise think I’d enjoy hosting a little corner in the fediverse.
Valid points. Also too, the cost associated with a business class data plan that actually allows hosting. If you think about it, it really is an arbitrary restriction put in place by ISPs to goad those who want to leverage the internet’s potential into more expensive plans.
business class data plan that actually allows hosting
You can get a VPS for $30/year with 4GB RAM, 25-35 GB SSD. Still good enough to host some things! Self hosting doesn’t mean it has to be at your house. In some cases, using a VPS ends up cheaper than just the electricity cost for hosting at home, let alone hardware costs, internet costs, etc.
mom-and-pop style datacenters
I find this wording very funny for some reason. I do wonder what a more-decentralized internet would look like though, rather than 90% of it being in the hands of a few megacorps.
I honestly think the drivers model has some merit to it, and it’d be interesting to see federated data centers. I dunno how well it would work out, but it would be interesting.
more people need to self-host, or at the very least we need more mon-and-pop style datacenters.
most would rather offload hardware costs and, more importantly, security, to those more knowledgeable.
running one’s own hardware is extremely time intensive, nevermind power and equipment costs
These three points that you’ve made are NOT accurate. I could go into great detail as to why this is but I won’t waste our time nor embarrass you.
The problem, unfortunately, always comes down to money.
This isn’t a technological problem.
All of the popular widely used corporate platforms gain more users because they have the money in which to market/advertise themselves.
That’s not contradictory. Most would rather offload hardware and security costs, running one’s own hardware is time intensive nevermind power and equipment costs, and you can indeed add advertising and awareness costs to that list. But you do also need the resource investments for a service to start with before advertising it.
Please look at the big picture here. The Fediverse exists only because of a very niche user base that are technologically exposed to it.
The general public HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE that the Fediverse exists.
Therefore, it would take either an enormous amount of incredibly generous people to market/advertise the Fediverse OR a fuck-ton of money to pay people to market/advertise the Fediverse.
Apologies for butting in here, but this brings up an IMHO very important point:
The general public HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE that the Fediverse exists.
If I may be so bold as to add: …and they like it that way.
When it comes to online stuff, most people are lazy, very very ignorant and anywhere inbetween politely indifferent and openly hostile towards any attempt to educate them. They want to look at cat videos and pr0n, collect likes for their food pics and chat with their grandkids. The technology behind all that is a nuisance, not a tool.
By and large, I think those people can’t be helped, because they’re happy with the status quo. If anything, you’re the enemy for wanting to take away their beloved Tiktok and WhatsApp.That means our largest efforts - self-hosting, the Fediverse, … will probably always be a bit of a parallel universe to the Internet at large.
This is sad for humanity in general, but it makes enshittification of those services both technically more difficult and (due to its small size and enshittification-resistant populace) less commercially viable.
And small doesn’t equal insignificant.So what I’m saying is, we shouldn’t see the Fediverse etc. as a replacement for everything, but as a safe space for refugees. And that’s what it excels at.
Yes, promotion and awareness of a service is necessary for its continuation. I’ve agreed with that. But again, without the technological resources and money, there is no service to promote and nothing to continue because it hadn’t even started.
Your audacity to announce unbeknownst to you how many of those instances OFFLOAD TO CDNs is outstanding.
You have yet to rescind your ignorance.
I await an apology.
Wtf??
What the hell are you even smoking???
I do agree with one tiny little bit of your list, though, and that’s the fact that your rebuttal would, in fact, be a waste of time.
