Do We Really Want True Decentralization?
Do we really want true decentralization?
Everyone keeps yelling and screaming that decentralization is the way. But with everything there are always two sides and in this article I'd like to go over each and get your thoughts in the comments section.
Before I jump into the guts of this article I want to share with you there is a decentralized Twitter alternative already. Check it out at LeoThreads.io this decentralized system also runs on blockchain and crypto allowing you to earn crypto for simply chatting with others.
The Pros
We all saw a need for decentralization when it came to the USA president being suspended from Twitter back in the day. Since then things we already suspected were happening started to come to light as being fact and true to all. Terms like shadow banning, muted and other algo changes that made accounts simply impossible to trend just because of the person or the information that was being spread. I mean think about it even the cancel culture to start up their own trend to get people on board to mute a single user as their call to action and most likely achieve some rather decent success in doing so. Once muted it's hard to get off that muted list.
With a truly decentralized program it would pretty much be a free for all and be up to each select user to vote, rate, mute etc. That all sounds great but with it comes some bad things which I'll go over in the cons.
The other aspect of a centralized system is not only the freedom of speech and to connect with anyone and everyone but also
The Cons
With deactualization means anyone can do anything in reality. That means things like porn, gambling, illegal trading, beheadings, fake news(yes there's going to still be that) and a load of other things you most likely don't want to see but are in fact a part of life that many of us are "protected from" which to be honestly I feel is a good thing. You need to be careful what you feed your brain in terms of content.
The other cons of this would be constant hacking attempts mainly from phishing tactics where you try to mimic another company, person or band. While some decentralized solutions could be applied to this such as a anonymous signature that proved it was the legitimate account much like the verified checkmark once was for.
The Middle?
So here are my thoughts on all of this. While the traditional social media doesn't work because of shadowbans or the owner/ceo or even developers injecting code or statements to restrict certain people, remove them etc it's pretty clear to me that a fully decentralized system wouldn't work either.
It would become rif with spam, scams, hacks and more. So somewhere either new tech has to be developed that's decentralized to combat this in an affective way or you're still going to need a central figure or type of vote structure by the community to help mitigate it.
Web2 and centralized solutions still have these issues with spam, scams and hacks so it's pretty easy to say they would still be an issue in a decentralized web 3 solution.
Revenue
Another aspect of all of this is that these decentralized web3 social media solutions should be offering up some type of revenue share to the content creators. However it's always a slippery slope as there have been countless platforms that have tried to take on major web2 solutions by offering up content creators a revenue share.
These platforms are always filled with spam to try and game the system for fractions of a penny. It's wild what some of these 3rd world countries will do to squeeze out a few pennies and totally trash a platform.
This destroys the algo and the sense of ever wanting to come back on to these platforms and use them again. This begs the question if some type of revenue share would be better done in another method?
With all of that being said I'd like to hear your take on if a truly decentralized social media platform is possible and if so do you feel all things go or how would you deal with potentially unwanted things?
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A very smart set of pros and cons to consider!
I think that in regards to the hackers, spammers, illegal content, etc., we can effectively shut them down through a community effort, i.e. someone pointing out the hack/spam/illegal aspect (ideally with proof, if needed) and the community downvoting them as a whole. This immediately underscores any attempts to profit from such activities.
If you have individuals who are trying to scam the system for fractions of a penny, it might not be quite as significant, but it would be quite easy to identify and take out bigger actors.
The only issue with this methodology comes when downvotes are used by large stakeholders to silence people for reasons such as: differing opinions and not using the blockchain the way they think it should be used. I've seen uncommon cases like this, and I can see that being a turn-off for some users.
I would think community would be in control in order to mitigate it as much as possible but seems like there has to be more Good people or holders with governance votes over bad in order for a system to really work. Instead of a business making the calls a vote from stake holders would make the calls.
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I think this would work in a place like Hive, where the majority stake (overall) is still held by individuals. The largest stakes are partially held by businesses (i.e. blocktrades comes to mind) and partially by individuals, and we have to rely on them to curate appropriately.
It's possible that as more businesses enter Hive, the dynamic may still change. We'll see how it all plays out!
Overall, I think it's safe to say that most people want to see the Hive ecosystem grow appropriately, because the health of the ecosystem directly affects that they can generate here.
I think truly decentralized social media in reality will be a bigger problem than centralized social media. There will be no 'law and order' since anything goes. I see the middle as having a decentralized social media structure and a centralized social media platform(s).
I am all for decentralized social media. That is the only way to protect us from people who think they are smarter them every body else. People who want to restrict others freedom, others freedom of speech, people trying to social engineer humanity with "follow the science" type propaganda against all definitions of science. People who want children to modify their body before the children could possibly know what's up with their body. As well as people who want to protect boys from porn but are perfectly happy to send them to war to protect their social structure / in the name of democracy.
A good degree of decentralization is needed at the base layer. For second layers and end applications, the degree of decentralization can vary depending on what they are trying to accomplish. Total centralization is acceptable at those levels if at least account ownership, asset ownership, and transactions are assured by the base layer. If that is done at (virtually) no cost as it happens on Hive, it's much better than if operations on the base layer are expensive because that would force end apps and second layers to batch transactions together for lower fees and the user has to trust those layers' security or good intentions (in case of owners of centralized apps).
When it comes to social media, I believe total decentralization is not possible. That's why on Hive you have the right to post anything you want, but interfaces also have the right to not show harmful content if things get out of hand (I'm not aware of this being exerted so far on Hive, interfaces leave it to the community so far). In between comes the community with its downvotes, and various types of muting, which is a more decentralized way of hiding harmful content.
All I want is to get rugged sir. Again and again
I mean that's what happens 90% of the time