Is decentralization a solution for all or a safe haven for nerds? It’s not enough to save ourselves, says Nolan Lawson.
Decentralization: Worth The Wait — Open Tech Strategies | Blog
Ethan Zuckerman has a piece in Wired that says building decentralization tools is a sucker's bet. He and his coauthors, Chelsea Barabas and Neha Narula, mention the FreedomBox, which I helped lead, as an example of how difficult this stuff is. They point to a list of things that make decentralized efforts prone to failure and conclude:
a practical guide to decentralization (for my friends) - tim's tinkerings
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Decentralization enables permissionless innovation
I’ve just started reading Inventing the Internet by Janet Abbate. The opening chapters are great, narrating Paul Baran’s efforts at RAND to design a nationwide communication network. Baran had one design goal for this network—survivability. Specifically, survivability in the face of nuclear catastrophe.
Decentralisation as a shifting mental framework
Programming note: every week I send out an email newsletter. It contains all the articles I published that week, as well as an additional essay that has been not been published elsewhere yet. This is a republication of last week’s essay I send out. If you’re interested, subscribe below to get all the updates directly […]
The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question
Fixating on the degree—rather than the type—of decentralization is leading us astray.
Minimum viable decentralization – John Backus – Medium
If you want people to use your product, decentralize the bare minimum. Lessons from Freenet, I2P, Darknet markets, and Reddit.
The ecosystem is moving
Considerations for distributed and decentralized technologies from the perspective of a product that many would like to see decentralize....
Welcome to the Web of Trust
Empowering individuals to co-create decentralized systems for lasting mutual benefit.
Centralization vs Decentralization - AVC
Decentralization is one of, if not the most, discussed features of the crypto tech stack. In a decentralized system, no single body controls the system. We have most certainly not reached the era fully decentralized systems, but that is what most of the world-class technologists working in the crypto sector are focused on getting us […]
Nobody cares about decentralization until they do
A recurring line in discussion of federated, decentralized social media is that no one cares about it. They just want their Twitter without the Nazis. Which is okay. But how it looks on the backend matters. When the illusion of a unified user experience breaks, how accessible the escape pod
Re: Re: Bluesky and Decentralization -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
A few weeks ago I wrote How decentralized is Bluesky really?, a blogpost which received far more attention than I expected on the fediverse and Bluesky both. Thankfully, the blogpost was received well generally, including by Bluesky's team. Bryan Newbold, core Bluesky engineer, wrote a thoughtful response article: Reply on Bluesky and Decentralization, which I consider worth reading.
Re: Re: Bluesky and Decentralization -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
A few weeks ago I wrote How decentralized is Bluesky really?, a blogpost which received far more attention than I expected on the fediverse and Bluesky both. Thankfully, the blogpost was received well generally, including by Bluesky's team. Bryan Newbold, core Bluesky engineer, wrote a thoughtful response article: Reply on Bluesky and Decentralization, which I consider worth reading.
decentralisation moves the centralisation one layer up, as it ever does i do agree with these recommendations tho
Tony Zhou
Bluesky gives users the power to choose their algorithms, but how does this actually work in practice? In our new preprint, we explore the ecosystem of Bluesky custom feeds and the feed creators behind them! 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2609.12958
