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blaine Jan 19, 2023

I've been reading and re-reading @robin's post, "The Internet Transition," for days now, and it's stupendous.

It matches and extends every intuition I've had about this new world we're in, and puts it all to words in a seemingly effortless way. I know how much effort it took, because it's the post I've always wished I could have written on the topic. Anyone who cares about governance or structures in our complicated new world should absolutely give it a go.

https://berjon.com/internet-transition/#fn-12

The Internet Transition

The Internet is allowing us to build a richer, more complex society but the way in which we Internet today is failing to support the governance systems that a more complex world requires. I take a look at why these issues are related, try to develop an intuition for a way forward, and point at the emerging field that is coming together to build that future.

Robin Berjon

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Bob Wyman Jan 19, 2023

@blaine @robin
Because " No matter how you set things up, the server can ultimately change the rules," we should design systems that limit the scope of control for any one server.

I think this means that servers should be limited in the specific service they provide and that we should have more, more specialized servers while relying on client-resident code to define more of any particular application.

https://berjon.com/internet-transition/#fn-12:~:text=No%20matter%20how%20you%20set%20things%20up%2C%20the%20server%20can%20ultimately%20change%20the%20rules.

The Internet Transition

Robin Berjon

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Robin Berjon Jan 19, 2023

@bobwyman @blaine If you take that (good) idea just a few steps further you're basically in peer-to-peer land. Peer systems are designed like institutions.

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Bob Wyman Jan 19, 2023

@robin @blaine
Rather than saying that all should be peer-to-peer, I think it makes more sense to say that properly designed systems would be "peer-to-peer-capable."

For instance, ActivityPub gives me an Inbox. I could host that on my own site, for peer-to-peer operation, or, I could delegate its maintenance to some more central server (in order to gain efficiencies, reduced maintenance, etc.) But, my client should be largely insensitive to that choice.

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Robin Berjon Jan 19, 2023

@bobwyman Well, *maybe*. This is in fact something on which I owe @blaine a response from a while ago. I'm not sure whether, or under which conditions, being capable of a good property (rather than being constrained to it) is sufficient for capture-resistance.

Email is just like what you describe; it's also ~85% owned by Google.

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Bob Wyman

@robin @blaine
I question whether any technical architecture can prevent capture, but believe that some approaches can increase capture-resistance.

In general, strengthening the ability to compute at the edges, and thus route around large incumbent central providers, will allow at least some independence.

Unfortunately, the current Web architecture prevents capture-resistance by relying on dumb browsers whose capabilities are controlled by the sites that they access.