As a rule, every decentralised system in computing eventually becomes centralised. This is usually because it is more efficient to employ a hierarchical structure when implementing some functions.
Crypto is just like every other system - ostensibly distributed but centralised in practice.
The great exception to this seems to be BitTorrent. It remains decentralised and I wonder - what is so special about BitTorrent that means it hasn’t been replaced by a hierarchical system? Is it just “piracy” or is there something deeper we can learn from it?
> what is so special about BitTorrent that means it hasn’t been replaced by a hierarchical system?
Every time a top of hierarchy node pops up too high it gets whacked by copyright enforcement. This is an effective pressure against centralisation. Otherwise every decentralised system tends to converge into central systems, like planets forming out of an accretion disk.
Surprisingly the copyright industry is far more effective at driving global law enforcement to do its bidding than the financial regulators are.
There isn’t a “top of the hierarchy node” in BitTorrent. Everyone gets treated the same less some tit for tat rules which usually don’t apply because a swarm usually has that 1 or 2 altruistic seeders.
We live in the world where law enforcement forced BitTorrent to become p2p. If that hadn't happened we probably wouldn't be using torrents and just downloading our stuff from rapidshare or MegaUpload or something.
It doesn't make sense to refute the argument by saying the argument is true.
Those are torrent indexes, which is not part of BitTorrent. They’re not essential to function. BitTorrent do come with centralized trackers but they are designed to not hold any payload.
Yes, this is parallel to the web3 situation with e.g. metamask or badgerdao; the system is technically decentralized, but most people use it through a front end which naturally re-centralizes it again.
Given the blockchain trilemma (decentralised, scalable, secure - pick 2), the majority of users will prefer scalable + secure and drop decentralised. We've seen it over and over again - users want the least friction, and decentralised solutions typically add more friction. So we'll end up with centralised solutions again.
What the proponents really mean when they use the whole "web3 is the solution to Big Tech monopolies" pretext, is that they want to introduce new monopolies, and in the process get rich quick. Given the background of many of the figures at the top of these schemes, e.g. serial fraudsters, convicted criminals, pathological liars, etc., the new monopolies will almost certainly be significantly worse than the existing Big Tech monopolies. Normally I wouldn't be so concerned, because I have faith that better technologies will win, but with cryptocurrencies I am genuinely concerned for the future, because the noisy zealots (with their high paid lobbyists[0]) are drowning out all the quiet thoughtful rational ones.
Crypto is just like every other system - ostensibly distributed but centralised in practice.
The great exception to this seems to be BitTorrent. It remains decentralised and I wonder - what is so special about BitTorrent that means it hasn’t been replaced by a hierarchical system? Is it just “piracy” or is there something deeper we can learn from it?