
Why decentralized social services fail - ninegunpi
https://medium.com/@9gunpi/why-decentralized-social-services-fail-d8a30ffd1dc6
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jasode
_> The “why” is not technical._

This is one of thr few essays about decentralization that understands that the
problem isn't technical.

However, I'd go further than his explanations of incentives and say that the
fundamental problem is that decentralized _technical protocols_ do not solve
the _centralization of how money is spent_.

Examples of that misunderstanding:

\- SMTP the protocol is decentralized (technical) and yet we have giant email
providers GMail/Hotmail/Yahoo which is centralized (money). The big providers
spent $$$ on 1 gigabyte mail storage + backups + convenience. SMTP specifies
how fields are laid out but it doesn't put money in everyone's bank account so
they can run residential SMTP servers so the email ecosystem stays
decentralized.

\- Git the protocol is decentralized (technical) but Github the service is
centralized (money). Why? Because Git the technical protocol is not a bank
fund that gives every programmer a free $10 VPS account to host their own git
repo. The centralization of money spent (Github invests in a datacenter but
individual programmers do not) results in centralization.

\- Bitcoin protocol is decentralized (technical) and yet the phenomenon of
giant China "mining pools" emerges which is centralization (money). The
ability to spend money on liquid cooled ASIC chips in a datacenter located
near the Artic Circle is "centralized" to the entities that can spend that
vast amount of money. The exceeds the ability for the home enthusiasts to
compute hashes on a spare computer in their bedroom.

The common theme: technical protocols can be decentralized but the _real-world
implementation_ of those protocols end up centralized because physical things
like cpus, harddrives, network bandwidth, etc cost money.

This pattern of _decentralized technical protocols_ vs _centralized economic
behavior_ is ignored by virtually all decentralization enthusiasts.

So the real puzzle to decentralization is, _" How do we _decentralize economic
behavior_ when everybody doesn't have the same amount of money to spend?"_
Nobody I've read about so far has figured that out . That includes
Sandstorm/IPFS/Filecoin/Mastadon/Diaspora/Ethereum etc.

~~~
speedplane
> The common theme: technical protocols can be decentralized but the real-
> world implementation of those protocols end up centralized because physical
> things like cpus, harddrives, network bandwidth, etc cost money.

I agreed with you up until here. Not convinced that centralization is due to
the economics of running a computer on a network. It's also a due to
reputation and trust.

People use gmail and hotmail, not just because they don't want to pay for the
computer, it's because they trust these companies will do it properly and
reliably.

Github isn't the best example either. It didn't spring up because of the
economics of running a git server. It got big largely because of its social
features, and also because it was a pretty trustworthy git repository. I feel
far more confident pushing to a git repo than to some physical server
somewhere. There's a trust aspect.

I'll skip Bitcoin and got to another mostly decentralized system: paper
currency. Exchanging paper currency is largely decentralized, but most people
deposit it in a bank, in part due to interest, but largely due to the trust
the bank provides.

The common theme to centralized services isn't the cost of computing hardware,
but rather raising trust/reliability in the service, outsourcing expertise,
and risk mitigation. Big central service providers are good at exactly this.

~~~
dredmorbius
Seems there's an angle of trust that includes Zipf's law.

Given that attention is limited, if there are some _n_ services, any one
individual's awareness of the _ith_ service is likely 1/i. And the general
population awareness will also fall with 1/i. If trust is a function (among
other things) of familiarity, then there's simply limited trust in a
universal-service market (that is: no subpopulation-specific grouping of
service, e.g., by geography).

------
dustfinger
_Brilliant technical solutions are solutions to problems that people have, not
problems we want to solve. As soon as there will be a serious problem, which
can be solved by decentralized or federated social service — it will be solved
graciously, designs are in place already._

Decentralized technology is in fact trying to solve a serious problem, but
sadly it is a problem that most people choose to ignore in favor of the
incentives offered by Facebook and other monolithic centralized services.

 _However, Facebook et al. provide and maintain huge, single-point-of-entry,
solely owned, walled gardens with hostile privacy policies and yet they
successfully serve millions of users..._

err... try billions of users

~~~
Spivak
If you first have to convince large amounts of people that there is actually a
problem then you're probably not solving a real-world problem for them.

~~~
dustfinger
In that case we better have a clear definition of what a real-world problem
is. Is a real-world problem specifically any issue that impedes ones ability
to fully capitalize on incentives? If that is the case then issues that do not
impede incentive gain such as mass surveillance and corporate data collecting
are not real-world problems.

------
dredmorbius
_Most_ social services fail.

There've been a slew of attempts. A handful, and I mean that literally, hit
the big time at any moment: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, VK, Twitter,
Reddit.

(That handful's composition may change, but its count largely doesn't. Zipf's
Law may hold a clue as to why.)

Even massively financed efforts fail: Google+. I'm one of the ghosts in the
ghost town, and measured the activity to boot.

Services who've studied other failures ... fail. Imzy.

Services who've gotten big ... fail. MySpace.

Services who sell for near a billion dollars ... fail. Bebo.

Even services that ... sort of succeed, fail to generate sustainable revenues.
Twitter and Reddit.

There are many problems, and initially, they tend overwhelmingly to be
_social_ \-- who is on the network. Several of the noteable successes hit big,
in particular Usenet, Slashdot, and Facebook, at least in their day. Draw the
_wrong_ initial crowd, and you'll be hampered by it forever.

There's a whole slew of other challenges: spam, abuse, asshats, network and
system attacks, costs, UI/UX, performance, relevance, utility, and more.
Whilst there are technical components, many of the elements are dominated by
soft-skills.

Commercial and centralised systems have tended to be the more successful,
through technical simplicity and funding, though there are noncommercial
successes: Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation, MetaFilter.

And some interesting efforts at a slow boil: GnuSocial, Diaspora, Mastodon.

I'm not convinced decentralisation is the core problem.

~~~
mxuribe
Great points, and i agree! I'd add that perhaps "slow boil" is good enough of
a "success" for those efforts you noted. ;-)

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nwah1
This is true not just of social networks, but decentralized technology in
general. There's incentive structures that make it cheaper and easier for
everyone to outsource everything, and outsourcing in the realm of technology
has large economies of scale. Even though email is listed as a premier example
of decentralization, it is also de facto centralized around gmail and a few
other major providers.

Although, the open standardization and lack of lock-in that email provides is
something to shoot for, and seems to be attainable.

~~~
thriftwy
Bittorrent works quite well, in fact.

~~~
nwah1
Bittorrent itself may or may not exhibit power law issues. I'm guessing that
it does... certainly the ratio of seeders to downloaders has always been bad.

But even if that were not true, Bittorrent is just a subcategory of
filesharing in general, and it is abundantly obvious that the vast majority of
filesharing occurs through centralized networks. (Google, Dropbox, Amazon,
Facebook, Apple, etc)

So, in this case, Bittorrent is akin to these bespoke decentralized social
networks that very few people use, and doesn't contradict the article at all.

~~~
thriftwy
> certainly the ratio of seeders to downloaders has always been bad

Not an issue usually.

> it is abundantly obvious that the vast majority of filesharing occurs
> through centralized networks

Whoa whoa, that's a strong clause, I remember times when BitTorrent was
responsible for 70% of traffic (period).

> bespoke decentralized social networks that very few people use

You're definitely living in a parallel reality.

~~~
nwah1
Nowadays, Netflix alone is about 40% of traffic. Throw in youtube and you're
already over half.

But even pirated content had largely been migrated to centralized streaming
services. Megaupload started that trend, although I'm not sure what the
leaders are now.

When people search for pirated content, they use streaming. When people want
to listen to a song, they use youtube or spotify. When people want porn, they
use PornHub.

I use bittorrent for linux ISOs and such, but I certainly haven't used it for
video content in years, and most people I know don't use it.

------
mxuribe
Yeah, as much of a fan as i am of decentralization, i have to acknowledge that
certainly - and unfortunately - any challenges to wider participation are not
merely technically, but do consist of "soft" challenges, such as those related
to behavior, incentives, and such. Its a tough nut to crack, no doubt. I'm
sure early adopters of other similar systems like email brought up similar
questions back in the day.

Although, one has to wonder, do the folks leading the charge for these
decentralized services really want each and every single person on facebook to
over-night migrate to the new communities? Maybe; but i would gather maybe
not. Maybe it started with some programmer simply scratching their own itch,
and offering others to "come on over and have fun at our party"? It's fun and
encouraging to hear recent popularity with some decentralized platforms. And
my being a fan of such platforms does bias me; triggering delight in me when i
hear such news. But I don't believe that the default (or only) goal of any
decentralized social service is to amass the maximum number of users. Wouldn't
that be more of a goal for a _centralized_ silo, or a shiny, new startup? If i
set up my own Gnu Social server/instance and my family, and i use it to post
fun stuff for ourselves, maybe that's my only goal.

------
k__
In Germany we have public and private TV, why can't we have something like
this for decentralized social services?

The public TV/radio is meant to help people with opinion making independent of
the government and private corps.

A public corp could develop the software, promote it and inform people about
the usage, but the software could run decentralized on home PCs or smartphones
etc.

~~~
camus2
> A public corp could develop the software, promote it and inform people about
> the usage, but the software could run decentralized on home PCs or
> smartphones etc.

Virtually any device with an internet connection can be used as a server. So
the solutions are already there, it's just that people trade freedom and
independence of decentralized solutions for convenience of centralized apps.

------
infodroid
I don't think the focus on incentives is the best way to look at the problem.

A different perspective is that decentralized social services fail because of
the lack of capital/revenue and sufficient management structure to compete
with their centralized, commercial counterparts.

Money can fund a team of great designers, engineers, testers, marketers,
sysadmins, writers, translators, product managers, to name a few. Together
they can roll out and maintain a service that meets high standards of quality,
uptime, usability, reliability, engagement, customer support... The things
that _actually_ matter to people.

Decentralized solutions really don't stand a chance against a well-funded
company.

