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backus's profile
John Backus
John Backus
John Backus
@backus

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John Backus

@backus

Seeking alternative compression. Hopefully wrong on average. Shameless. Started @getcognito and @bloom

San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2012

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    John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19

    p2p file sharing history is littered w/ predictions that a new **unstoppable and totally decentralized** protocol will takeover. It never happened. Users always flocked to the least decentralized system possible. Big lesson for today's blockchain and decentralization ecosystemspic.twitter.com/O2mE85BxF8

    6:02 PM - 19 Jul 2018
    • 148 Retweets
    • 443 Likes
    • Brad Mines Ella William Minshew Nate Murray Thomas de Phuoc Genevieve🌸 Anthony Karth P. 🍁 Meredith ⚙️🌹✨
    31 replies 148 retweets 443 likes
      1. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19

        Decentralized systems are WAY harder to build and this seems to always affect UX. If easier to use centralized systems exist, users always prefer them. Decentralization is like regulatory compliance: it isn't a feature that attracts users, you just do it to stay alive.

        24 replies 45 retweets 188 likes
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      1. New conversation
      2. zooko‏ @zooko Jul 19
        Replying to @backus

        Word. And today's contenders with the "slightly less decentralized" quality, like Stellar and Eos, are super promising contenders.

        8 replies 7 retweets 54 likes
      3. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19
        Replying to @zooko

        Yeah, this is a really solid contrarian argument for those projects actually. Great point

        3 replies 1 retweet 18 likes
      4. Tommy Nicholas‏ @tommyrva Jul 19
        Replying to @backus @zooko

        They went to the least decentralized system that still got the job done. What is the “job” of crypto currency platforms? I say censorship resistance but if it’s just somewhat decentralized value transfer stellar has been the best for that basically since launch.

        2 replies 1 retweet 10 likes
      5. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19
        Replying to @tommyrva @zooko

        The boundary between what people want to exist and what the Government won’t allow to exist in a centralized way but won’t kill if it is decentralized

        1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
      6. Tommy Nicholas‏ @tommyrva Jul 19
        Replying to @backus @zooko

        I agree. I felt that was such a bright line but the government seems to have mostly given up. Maybe they’re just waiting.

        2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      7. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19
        Replying to @tommyrva @zooko

        Yeah I don’t know, but as I’ve argued in past tweets I think waiting is probably a better strategy than killing early stuff and defining a playbook for future tech in the process

        1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      8. 1 more reply
      1. New conversation
      2. Distributed Bit  🛰️ 📡 ⛓️‏ @distributedbit Jul 20
        Replying to @backus @Truthcoin

        BitTorrent was actually extremely decentralised, especially with the dht based swarm connection establishment mechanism!

        2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
      3. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
        Replying to @distributedbit @Truthcoin

        Yes, but less in 2005. Originally, it was one tracker per torrent, no DHT, no PEX. Those came with time

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. Distributed Bit  🛰️ 📡 ⛓️‏ @distributedbit Jul 20
        Replying to @backus @Truthcoin

        Yeah sure buy at one point it was both popular and had decentralised swarm peer discovery mechanisms.

        2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      5. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
        Replying to @distributedbit @Truthcoin

        Right but my point is the interesting transition point where it was less decentralized and yet better protected from a legal stance

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      6. Distributed Bit  🛰️ 📡 ⛓️‏ @distributedbit Jul 20
        Replying to @backus @Truthcoin

        Than what?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      7. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
        Replying to @distributedbit @Truthcoin

        Kazaa, Gnutella

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      8. Distributed Bit  🛰️ 📡 ⛓️‏ @distributedbit Jul 20
        Replying to @backus @Truthcoin

        Id agree that it was more centralised than gnutella but not more centralised than kazza, it was controlled by a company and was proprietary software

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      9. End of conversation
      1. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19
        Replying to @BlockchainEng

        BitTorrent traffic was between 55% and 67.5% global internet traffic in 2007. I don't see it as a failure. I think it won. One of the screenshots is from 2005 when BitTorrent's usage dropped temporarily due to key search engine takedowns

        0 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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      2. Kirill So‏ @sokirill Jul 23
        Replying to @backus

        I guess a general point is that most of the world doesn't really care about decentralisation... at least from a consumer perspective, some other factors play a role like a convenience (UX) and whether something is cheaper (pricing/accessibility).

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 23
        Replying to @sokirill

        Exactly

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
        Replying to @fraudro

        Search isn’t and in 2005 torrent trackers weren’t. BitTorrent decentralized more later with trackerless torrents, but compared to previous p2p protocols it was much more centralizsx by requiring centralized torrent search engines

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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