Privacy, control and trust.

[CryptoPro909]

Privacy, control and trust.
Is decentralization the key?

The same word keeps coming back over and over when reading about WEB3: #decentralization .
#bitcoin being a decentralized currency, #ethereum trying to be a decentralized ecosystem, #dapps (decentralized applications),...we can continue for a while...

Why the focus on #decentralization in #Web3?

📱Let’s do a small recap.

A decentralized web (Web3) relies on a peer-to-peer network built upon a community of users. Every website or application gets distributed across hundreds of nodes located on different devices.

This reduces the chance of a server crash, #hackers taking down a website, losing your data or an authoritarian government taking control of and/or censoring opinions. It removes TRUST out of the equation, everything is transparent on the #blockchain and not controlled by one entity, it's community driven.

but 🤔⁉️ what’s the difference with #WEB2?

Web 2.0 is what we are experiencing at the moment. Companies develop and provide products and services in a centralized manner. Facebook for example:
Do you think you own your #Facebook pictures? No, the company owns everything on the platform, and they have complete control of all the content that users create there. If they want to ban you or block you, they will do it. You have no control over your own data.
This gives a huge amount of power to a centralized entity…that maybe you don’t even #trust.

Web 3.0 is a concept for the next generation of the internet. It is the evolution of how users are able to #control and #own their creations and online content, digital assets and online identities.

“The promise of #Web3 is building new web protocols and infrastructure that should allow developers to build apps where users bring their own data and where identity is no longer tied to any specific platform,” to quote Biilmann.
 
🧠 Are you excited to try decentralization in Web3?

The Internet Computer (#IC) is a good place to start. You can already experiment in a decentralized environment, where you control your own assets in a community driven ecosystem.

Here are already some of the possibilities:
🛠 Build anything on the Blockchain - front-end and back-end
❌ Develop a Downtime proof web service
🔗 Build Community-based ownership & voting systems
💲 Build it affordably

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6924339061574791169/

What is your opinion about decentralization?

[1715208251]

1715208251

[1715208251]

1715208251

[1715208251]

1715208251

[1715208251]

1715208251

[1715208251]

1715208251

[Moneyprism]

there is no total privacy and control on the internet, as long as you are connected to the internet your privacy and data are vulnerable to being tracked or hacked ... but even so WEB 3.0 is the latest generation and gives freedom to users, so that if you call it decentralized on WEB 3.0 is a solution to many problems on internet today

[Ucy]

I think it will be a dangerous idea without guaranteed and sustainable decentralization, community-control , privacy, good rules, and other good ideals that are necessary for safe and proper network with no central control. I think it's better to have traditional governments remain in control of their citizens than allow them move to networks that can be hijacked by moneybags and anarchists (via centralized mechanism like PoS or lawless decentralization) who are obsessed with collapsing the national authorities and taking over control of the world's billions of people.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I love decentralization, and from my understanding, web 3.0 is all about decentralization, but I have a question.
If web 3.0 is totally decentralized and no body have access to my information or whatever I create over there, what about social media platforms that launch as web 3.0 applications, does it mean that the owners of this platforms have absolutely no access to my personal data/information and also no access to the content I create on the platform?

Why I asked this question is because there is this web 3.0 social media platform where a user's post is automatically minted as an NFT and is stored in that user's wallet, it claimed to be totally decentralized, I signed up and discovered that i can't post until am verified by the owner of the platform, I contacted the owner and got verified, then I posted an image which automatically turned into an NFT and was stored in my wallet, I returned the next day and discovered my verification badge has been revoked^{(and remember I can't post without the badge)}, I contacted the owner again and he said he took away my posting right because the image I posted does not sit well with him, that he doesn't like the image (which is actually an image I found online), he said I can only post personal images, like pictures I took with my phone or camera,.....

Makes me want to ask again, is this what decentralization is all about?

[hugeblack]

A decentralized web (Web3) relies on a peer-to-peer network built upon a community of users. Every website or application gets distributed across hundreds of nodes located on different devices.

P2P communication and making the contract distributed does not give the currency the advantage of decentralization, but rather who manages those contracts, the cost of double spending, and the number of full nodes.

Thus the criteria mentioned are not sufficient to classify a decentralized currency.

[fiulpro]

But can we have absolute decentralization??
There would always be manipulations from the side of Whales and people who are holding a lot there as well. The simple situation would be : how to make sure that does not happen as well ?!
-As we see there seem to the criteria of centralization being pushed into decentralized system ending up in converting the currency into a balance between two opposite economy.

I think it will be a dangerous idea without guaranteed and sustainable decentralization, community-control , privacy, good rules, and other good ideals that are necessary for safe and proper network with no central control. I think it's better to have traditional governments remain in control of their citizens than allow them move to networks that can be hijacked by moneybags and anarchists (via centralized mechanism like PoS or lawless decentralization) who are obsessed with collapsing the national authorities and taking over control of the world's billions of people.

What if the government itself collapsed?
What if the world ends up in a chaos and the economics of every single country is affected ? What about right now ? About the Pandemic? Regarding the war?

In cases like this traditional government does not work very well and we have to look for additional things to support ourselves as well. That's where a decentralized system comes in.

[Smartvirus]

A decentralized web (Web3) relies on a peer-to-peer network built upon a community of users. Every website or application gets distributed across hundreds of nodes located on different devices.

P2P communication and making the contract distributed does not give the currency the advantage of decentralization, but rather who manages those contracts, the cost of double spending, and the number of full nodes.

Thus the criteria mentioned are not sufficient to classify a decentralized currency.

More  importantly, true decentralisation is what we have on some of the wallets (non custodial wallets) and as such, having it on a a centralised wallet or exchange sort of revokes that right from the owner to the exchange as they are in charge of your funds or contract which screams centralization but that, is on the contract and not the currency in itself.

I still don't believe decentralisation is the answer to everything in out human affairs as, centralization has got its advantages too to put nations, and organisations in check an in line.

[Bushdark]

Sometimes the promise might looks enchanting and well pleasing but I don't think that we can have full control of our private I respective of the promise that is given to users. The internet is a versatile community where everyone can come up with what they want just like many crypto projects coming up with different uses of their project for the sake of value.

The web 0.3 does not mean that we can not be vulnerable to hack or external attack although might be more decentralized than what we are seeing now. One thing I've notice in the era of science and technology is the consistent search of alternative ways to ruin other people's effort. The hackers and scammers will almost create new techniques to make new technology vulnerable to attack.

[ajochems]

Decentralized is the key tool for bitcoin to survived till now. Bitcoin sustained over a decade with this decentralized concept. If it was control by some individual, it may be drop or sold out. Even it may ended by the individual interest.But the maker of tgis was unique in his creation for the long sustainable. May be the founder and co founder may had huge bitcoin in their hand and enjoying in some part of world. Since they make this bitcoin alive.

[LeGaulois]

Because it's decentralized, it doesn't mean it can not be exploited by different parties. You have to trust the code, and open-source doesn't mean the code is perfect. We have already seen some examples.
Not even talking about solutions marketed as "decentralized" while it's not completely true. It appears that when it's about their own project, they suddenly have another definition of "decentralized"...

Also, quoting Wikipedia to make it shorter without going deep

- Not decentralized

Kevin Werbach, author of The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust,[39] has said that "many so-called 'web3' solutions are not as decentralized as they seem, while others have yet to show they are scalable, secure and accessible enough for the mass market", adding that this "may change, but it's not a given that all these limitations will be overcome".[40]

In early 2022, Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal, articulated how Web3 is not as decentralized as it appears to be, mainly due to consolidation in the cryptocurrency field, including in blockchain application programming interfaces which is currently mainly controlled by the companies Alchemy and Infura, cryptocurrency exchanges which is mainly dominated by Binance, Coinbase, MetaMask, and OpenSea, and the stablecoin market which is currently dominated by Tether. Marlinspike also remarked that the new web resembles the old web

Others have raised concerns about a decentralized web, citing the potential for low moderation and the proliferation of harmful content,[9] the centralization of wealth to a small group of investors and individuals,[10] or a loss of privacy due to more expansive data collection.

Web 3.0 is more about using blockchains than decentralization. And using the term "blockchain" doesn't always mean public blockchains. There are also private ones. Knowing the mass doesn't care about decentralization it will end with the same problems we're facing nowadays with Web 2.0: Oligopoly with only a few companies ruling their industry (with their own blockchain that the public will use).

Decentralized applications and solutions exist since decades and people have never massively adopted them (or most)

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, I understand what you're saying and what the supposed promise of decentralized everything holds for the internet, but I'm cynical.  In fact, whatever it is that's two steps beyond cynical is what I am, so the way I see it is that if something can be improved upon or innovated with respect to the internet, big corporations and/or governments will find a way to fuck it all up.

Napster and all of the P2P file-sharing programs that came after it were extremely popular for years until that handful of people got letters in the mail telling them they were getting sued for illegally downloading music.  That made the news, scared people off, and although there's still massive piracy going on it shows you that just because something is decentralized doesn't mean it's outside of someone's control.

I've heard it said here many times that bitcoin can't be shut down by any government.  That might technically be true, but it certainly could be made illegal--and then you'd be a criminal if you stayed in the bitcoin space.

And lastly, I remember all the hype about web 2.0, which was all about user-created content....and what did we get?  A bunch of idiot Youtubers conforming to Youtube's policies and their sponsors' demands, all trying to sell you something.  There's more advertising in a 12-minute video than you'd see in an hour long TV show, and the "content" is made by total amateurs, no matter how good the production value is.  Ugh.

[Dunamisx]

Is decentralization the key?

The same word keeps coming back over and over when reading about WEB3: #decentralization .
#bitcoin being a decentralized currency, #ethereum trying to be a decentralized ecosystem, #dapps (decentralized applications),...we can continue for a while...

Why the focus on #decentralization in #Web3?

Everyone at the end of the day comes out with a claim on decentralized system but of which they were not, all because they understand the need for user's privacy and security and they try to frame a decentralized network in disguise, I've also come across many exchanges that are truly centralized exchange in nature but claiming decentralization, in #Web3 of this current dispensation, i only confide trust and decentralization in it maximum capacity in "Bitcoin Network" and the truly decentralized exchange like:
bisq.network
hodlhodl.com
localcryptos.com

And when we are talking about maximum security and privacy then running a bitcoin full node on the blockchain is more advisible, you can download bitcoincore or use wasabi wallet for coinjoin, while for wallet preference you can go for hardware wallets which are open source. this is how i define my own privacy, trust and control over my coins in cryptocurrency and i maintain my horizons within this coverage only. i realized that many try to seek for privacy, trust and control over their coins where it is not but bitcoin network have always maintain it privacy, control and trust in these directions listed above.

[LeGaulois]

This is the perfect misconception I'm talking about in my previous post.

Localcryptos and Hodlhodl are not purely decentralized platforms (they never advertised themselves as such). Who owns the website, who owns the server, Do you have decision power? No.
The sites are owned and hosted by centralized applications and companies (Ltd). You can not vote anything and raise your concerns. If for example, they decide to make a change (whatever it is) you just have to shut up and follow their directives.

That's the total opposite of a decentralized autonomous organization that doesn't have a centralized leadership and in which the community can vote on proposals for example

Wasabi is no longer really recommended for this purpose since they can now block some transactions if they feel the need... By the way: did you have the possibility to say no to the change? Nope. The coordinator service, zkSNACKS, is centralized, so you see, privacy doesn't mean decentralization.

...

Dude, sometimes I think the web was better decades ago. Yes, we had ugly websites but a lot less noise

[doomloop]

I think it will be a dangerous idea without guaranteed and sustainable decentralization, community-control , privacy, good rules, and other good ideals that are necessary for safe and proper network with no central control. I think it's better to have traditional governments remain in control of their citizens than allow them move to networks that can be hijacked by moneybags and anarchists (via centralized mechanism like PoS or lawless decentralization) who are obsessed with collapsing the national authorities and taking over control of the world's billions of people.

Yes that’s true. But this is at its earlier stage so there is the very possibility that there will be people who would try to exploit these platforms and misuse them. There might be nothing that we can do right now, but I do believe that as time goes on these things will be put into consideration and there will be a solution to these and whatever other problems that may arise in the future. This is just the first stage of it, and once it is out, there will always be new ideas coming from people on how to make things better.

[Hydrogen]

Privacy, control and trust.
Is decentralization the key?

The key is the public recognizing its in their best interest to be educated, organized and informed. To make it difficult for them to be scammed, cheated or thrown under a bus by representatives.

There is no substitute for this, whether it be systemic or design oriented in nature.

People have been persuaded into believing they can built everything within a so easy a caveman can do it sandbox. So that we no longer need to know basic fundamentals or make good decisions. The software and design will make good decisions for us. Its an offshoot of warning labels needing to be on everything. People apparently do not like thinking about things, and apparently do not like learning. We try to build systems which omit thinking and learning but there isn't much indication that this can yield positive results over the long term imo.

[Reid]

Too curious about who will make a social media platform in a decentralized way.
Who would provide the storage? There should be one, right or else the photos or anything uploaded won't be saved at all. I see Facebook as a big storage drive and their users like it that way. They won't pay anything like the "Google Drive" monthly or annually just to keep their memories.
I am intrigued at how this will be injected in a social media platform that has the community control who doesn't own anything like a storage.
Will that mean you will need to pay for a private storage?

[dbc23]

Web 3.0 is control in the hands of everyone in a decentralized setting. No more centralized database storage and manipulation but rather a collective peer-2-peer network of a consensual frame work aimed to keep the data and content in a web 3.0 save and  temper proof any anonymous with high standards to checkmate violators and theft. A network that exist without a third party interference. I agree that this will be the next generation of internet

[Webetcoins]

Web3 is really one of the coolest thing ever that is being released. I’m looking forward to see it rolled out fully. One of the thing that really interested me about Web3 is the gaming features. So, from what I have learnt about this –it allows you to have a direct ownership through no fungible tokens (NFT).

So, that’s to say that whatever you own in a game belongs to you and no can claim ownership of it and not even the game’s creator themselves can do such. You can even sell these items if you decide to not play the game again.

[CryptoPro909]

Decentralization is a work in progress. Will we have a 100% decentralized ecosystem, I doubt it. We will definitely move to more decentralization, where decisions will be community based.

It can never be as bad as it is now in my opinion. Now facebook, governments, spotify, youtube,.... have full control.
Very dangerous.

[CryptoPro909]

Luna is a great example of trust being abused...