Can online platforms like Youtube and Facebook really be decentralized?

[stompix]

In my opinion decentralization is one of the platforms organized to transact directly and there are no rules there. For example, exchange platforms in the US such as Nasdaq are decentralized and they do not have a rule about the liquidity or the price of stocks traded by businesses in a day.

Oh my god, where do you people come from?
Nasdaq is decentralized and it has no rules!

Youtube isn't hard, it can be done via good old torrenting - you already can stream videos on some sites this way. Of course it won't be 100% like Youtube, since you can't take down your videos once they are there, but we can just call it a feature.

Yeah, it works with new stuff..till it won't work anymore:P
Torrenting is the technical solution but what it lacks is an organisation from the seeders.
You want to download Jurassic park, you can do it even now, there are hundreds of seeders, you want to download an episode from live pd two seasons ago? Good luck I have my seedbox opened for two months and still haven't managed to come across a peer with the full file.

So, you will need to have some sort of distribution model, where at any time a file is available and the upload speed from the peers is enough.
And you can make this possible only ...with a central node, that knows at any time where and if the files are available. . So, goodbye decentralization.

[bettercrypto]

I started to learn about crypto two months ago. Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum etc. make total sense to me.

I can't, however, understand why it would make sense to decentralize large online platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Or let's say: I don't understand how this could work.

Bitcoin has a decentralized ledger where all transactions are stored. How would that ledger look for a decentralized Youtube or Facebook?

Or am I missing something? Does decentralization mean something different in this regard?

Thank you!

PS: I'm asking because I again and again read headlines that say something along the line of "everything will be decentralized".

Only cryptocurrency by the help of blockchain technology can make decentralisation true. The transparency that blockchain aims to achieve will not be done by these two giant platforms. Remember, facebook and youtube are giant social media tech and they need to centralize everything so that the control is upon them. If they will make it decentralised, rules will never be set and conflicts might arise.

[hatshepsut93]

Yeah, it works with new stuff..till it won't work anymore:P
Torrenting is the technical solution but what it lacks is an organisation from the seeders.
You want to download Jurassic park, you can do it even now, there are hundreds of seeders, you want to download an episode from live pd two seasons ago? Good luck I have my seedbox opened for two months and still haven't managed to come across a peer with the full file.

So, you will need to have some sort of distribution model, where at any time a file is available and the upload speed from the peers is enough.
And you can make this possible only ...with a central node, that knows at any time where and if the files are available. . So, goodbye decentralization.

Smaller content creators would have to seed their own videos. Also, I remember some shitcoin wanted to integrate itself with torrents to incentivize seeding - I don't know what came out of it, but maybe in the future it could be done with Lightning Network.

Youtube has been unprofitable since its inception and only recently it started to break even, so the Youtube that we know was indeed only possible due to centralization and Google being a giant corporation. A decentralized tube would most likely be in some ways worse than Youtube, but it would also be more free.

[kapalmabur]

Youtube has been unprofitable since its inception and only recently it started to break even, so the Youtube that we know was indeed only possible due to centralization and Google being a giant corporation. A decentralized tube would most likely be in some ways worse than Youtube, but it would also be more free.

It is true Youtube did not have an advertisement model in the beginning and they needed a big firm like google to make things different and make it a profitable company and even then it took years to make good profit, they were getting visitors but to turn that into money it took a while and if it was a decentralized platform i doubt it will continue for a long time without a strong business model.

there is a crypto project that has a concept like youtube, but we are paid with tokens when making videos, upvotes, and shares,
the project is Tokentuber, if youtube does the same, i am sure it will be better than them following Google's footsteps

[tsaroz]

Of course they could and there has already been a decentralized alternative for both of them. But the problem with decentralized platform is how to make it a safe place for different group of people and stop illegal contents and save copyright claims. Monitoring would be difficult and lengthy, if we speed up, there could be content war between different group of people, countries, political ideas and parties.

[oktana]

they can still filter out published data systems on a regular basis.

it will still be centered and still must abide by the principle of geo-company. implementation will also be hampered by any policy reforms that do not benefit the public, their system has entered the commercial and strict domain with various censorship of freedom. Implementation of decentralization will not work perfectly.

[bettercrypto]

Of course they could and there has already been a decentralized alternative for both of them. But the problem with decentralized platform is how to make it a safe place for different group of people and stop illegal contents and save copyright claims. Monitoring would be difficult and lengthy, if we speed up, there could be content war between different group of people, countries, political ideas and parties.

That is the challenge for decentralized platform. How they can manage the people. Because the people are the one that working to the system. There is no head, no chief who monitors the system.
However, I think that these gigantic social platforms can handle that situation specially that they have the brightest and talented worker for their system.

[FlightyPouch]

I can't imagine these platforms being decentralized. YouTube, for example, is focussing on their greatest and biggest content creators which is why they are earning a lot of money. If no one will be able to control the algorithm, I think it will be more chaotic for smaller content creators and that would totally destroy that platform.

[notthematrix]

We already have a product for people who want a decentralized Youtube, it's called Flixxo.

For the rest, you can stay on youtube, a platform that became pretty much what it was supposed to fight against, internet tv with mandatory ads and censorship

[gentlemand]

https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-wants-to-create-a-decentralized-standard-for-social-media/

Jack Dorsey himself has now kicked a plan into action regarding this, though it doesn't quite fit the remit completely. As noted in a tweet in that article it seems like it's more like Twitter releasing an Android-esque system and then setting it free and seeing what happens.

It would be interesting to see what a fully free for all version of the big platforms would look like. My guess is that they would be totally intolerable.

[el kaka22]

In order to decentralize youtube you need to have a datacenter that is fragments of the data all shared by the people which combined becomes a video. Or some other method I can't think of, I mean think about it if you have a facebook type of thing that is decentralized all you need to provide people a "wallet" that you can store information yourself and people will see it when they go to your "wallet" but when you do a youtube type of video thing you need everyone to be able to suggest stuff like youtubes recommendations and trends and what not, your facebook message doesn't become a trending topic, but youtube video does.

I feel like a decentralized social media like twitter is quite possible but the more complicated it gets the harder it is for people to decentralize it.

[dothebeats]

As long as big corporations handle these platforms, it's obvious that they will remain as is and will continue to do so until the end of these platforms' popularity. Though anyone can start their own decentralized platforms, the thing is most big names and people are invested and have their eyes fixed on these giants. Though there might be a few random groups of enthusiasts that cling on small hubs of unknown platforms, it still is not enough to defeat these giants on what they do, but at least they are alternatives.

[Mometaskers]

https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-wants-to-create-a-decentralized-standard-for-social-media/

Jack Dorsey himself has now kicked a plan into action regarding this, though it doesn't quite fit the remit completely. As noted in a tweet in that article it seems like it's more like Twitter releasing an Android-esque system and then setting it free and seeing what happens.

It would be interesting to see what a fully free for all version of the big platforms would look like. My guess is that they would be totally intolerable.

Just checked back this thread, thanks for this news which I haven't heard yet. I wonder how Bluesky will go through with this but I think it'll be "decentralized" more regarding the moderating, so Mastodon (which I only heard through this article) does seem right. Twitter will still call the shots what content gets posted and they'd still cancel people they don't agree with.

[Twentyonepaylots]

In order to decentralize youtube you need to have a datacenter that is fragments of the data all shared by the people which combined becomes a video. Or some other method I can't think of, I mean think about it if you have a facebook type of thing that is decentralized all you need to provide people a "wallet" that you can store information yourself and people will see it when they go to your "wallet" but when you do a youtube type of video thing you need everyone to be able to suggest stuff like youtubes recommendations and trends and what not, your facebook message doesn't become a trending topic, but youtube video does.

But making youtube a decentralized platform would just be like the early stages of decentralized video streams today, no users and no income. And by that how are they going to handle their users? If no one's in control, how about the content creators and their content and materials? No on will manage it? I cannot imagine myself using a decentralized platform of social media.

I feel like a decentralized social media like twitter is quite possible but the more complicated it gets the harder it is for people to decentralize it.

It is still in deep to talk with twitter making it open and decentralized. No need to tall about it since it has not started yet, decisions isn't final for the whole team.

[vintages]

These two social media platforms can never be decentralized because of it popularity and because they never started out in that part.
The only thing that can make them to consider or take up that part is if there is a huge competitor that is decentralized that is capable of sweeping them off guard, aside that I don't see it leading that part.

[shield132]

I see a lot of people abuse word "Blockchain Technologies" and "Decentralization", that's because these words look attractive and innovative and you know, more likely people are interested with innovative things. In reality, at least to my mind there is no need of decentralized youtube and facebook analogues, there were many attempts of creating decentralized social platform but no one explained well what pros it had and why would someone choose that over facebook or twitter for example.
Can 100% say the same on youtube, it can't be decentralized because someone has to manage content there, for example someone may upload movie that is against copyrights and it's not acceptable, such content needs to be removed. There are still a lot of examples to mention there.

[minersday]

Lol, leave these greedy folks out of a transparent and decentralized ecosystem. I don't know much off Youtube but definitely Zuckerberg is not the kind of person who will cherish entrusting power to the people. Facebook is the controlling type of platform, these days everything is regulated and you have to pay to boost your views when you make a post.

[dunfida]

As long as big corporations handle these platforms, it's obvious that they will remain as is and will continue to do so until the end of these platforms' popularity. Though anyone can start their own decentralized platforms, the thing is most big names and people are invested and have their eyes fixed on these giants. Though there might be a few random groups of enthusiasts that cling on small hubs of unknown platforms, it still is not enough to defeat these giants on what they do, but at least they are alternatives.

I agree to this point and in fact the reality into this industry.It wont easily be beaten or replaced up by decentralized ones.Ive seen in the past on a certain project that trying to build up a
decentralize social media but it looks like they have failed due to lack of support or funding which indicates that interest into these field isnt really that high for them to succeed.
But it isnt really bad to push up this idea if theres someone do have the capacity and dedication to clash up their main competitors.

[Casdinyard]

Lol, leave these greedy folks out of a transparent and decentralized ecosystem. I don't know much off Youtube but definitely Zuckerberg is not the kind of person who will cherish entrusting power to the people. Facebook is the controlling type of platform, these days everything is regulated and you have to pay to boost your views when you make a post.

You're pointing out Facebook ads, right? So what's the problem with that? Google ads also is a paid platform to advertise. Everything is paid and you can expect good results if it's done well.

But yeah, Facebook is also controlling one especially when it have the access to our information and privacy. It's just quite annoying that why some wanted to make everything decentralized? I know we hate being controlled but YouTube and other social media platforms is better to stay that way.

[Pokapoka124]

Well let's see how it all pans out. Facebook is looking to launch its own crypto Libra. A lot of controversy there at the moment but we will see