This crypto-fueled decentralized protocol craze is an antitrust trojan horse. Do people calling to break up Big Tech realize Silicon Valley might accidentally trust-bust itself?
Ex: Twitter couldn’t freeze out 3rd party apps like it has if backend was decentralized
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The blockchain ecosystem is also investing insane amounts of cash into finding viable UI for interacting w/ private keys.
This may help privacy advocates find ways to make the equivalent of GPG emails (and much more) easier to use and accessible in key apps like the browser2 replies 5 retweets 24 likesShow this thread -
Young people sniffing around cryptocurrencies end up learning cryptography and distributed systems terms: “zero knowledge proofs”, “the byzantine generals problem”, etc
I wouldn’t be surprised if this motivates more students to study these areas in college1 reply 3 retweets 25 likesShow this thread -
Even if you’re skeptical of all the crypto companies county ICOs, bottom line is they’re going to try to launch crypto-based distributed systems. p2p file sharing provided lots of production networks for academia to study (Kademlia, Gnutella, FastTrack, BitTorrent).1 reply 2 retweets 12 likesShow this thread -
Silver linings for crypto-haters: At least blockchain might…
Incentivize tech industry to not build monopolies
Fund UI experiments for privacy tools
Expose students to cryptography, distributed systems
Provide crypto + distributed systems case studies for academia4 replies 46 retweets 182 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @backus
Can you map out how blockchain is going to incentivize the tech industry to NOT build monopolies?
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Replying to @jtashea
Any company doing an ICO is committing to building a decentralized product. Even SEC named decentralization as core criteria. Look at Limewire, Kazaa, and eDonkey back in file sharing days; very hard to control who builds on top of your protocol if your backend isn’t centralized.
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Replying to @backus
I’m confused. The examples you use failed. Limewire and Kazaa are dead and eDonkey has been losing users since BitTorrent overtook it a decade ago. Yet record companies, while different, still exist. I don’t see how you’re making the logical jump.
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Ah I've shared a bunch about how p2p file sharing is a useful historical reference for decentralization stuff. See https://medium.com/@jbackus/fat-protocols-arent-new-42d2c538db41 … Look at the ecosystem at the time, not today's market. Many companies competing on top of same protocols.
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Anyways, the p2p part isn't crucial. Core of many internet tech giants (Google, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter) is network effects or proprietary central software. I'm not saying *these companies* will decentralize. I'm saying that crypto boom might incentivize future companies to.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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