Decentralization is part of a larger legal playbook. More doesn't always help: BitTorrent was less decentralized than Kazaa but more legally resilient. Their use of OSS, marketing, PR, and implicit reliance on 3rd parties (The Pirate Bay) mattered morehttps://twitter.com/backus/status/1016428419674882048 …
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In a decentralized product market, recklessness buys early growth. Many companies grew by marketing to pirates. I call BitTorrent an "ugly duckling." It didn't seem like a winner until late in the game. Here's how to spot ugly duck investments:https://medium.com/@jbackus/invest-in-the-ugly-duckling-decentralization-product-market-fit-and-the-law-bea856a6bbad …
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What parts of our tech should we decentralize? How do we know when we're done? I think a lot of people in crypto are struggling with these questions. I think history provides an answer. Find your "minimum viable decentralization"https://medium.com/@jbackus/minimum-viable-decentralization-d813dcf653fc …
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This thread focused on decentralization as a legal tactic to be used sparingly, pulling from the history of p2p file sharing. This isn't my only deep dive into p2p history and crypto! Check out my thread on market dynamics, governance, and monetization:https://twitter.com/backus/status/1004471335488122880 …
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If you enjoyed this thread, my blog post "Resistant protocols: How decentralization evolves" goes into more depth: https://medium.com/@jbackus/resistant-protocols-how-decentralization-evolves-2f9538832ada …
If you don't follow me yet, I tweet regularly about crypto, decentralization, and p2p. Plenty more to come, stay tuned!Show this thread
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Aimster obscured searches and user IPs from its protocol
BitTorrent disowned search and left IPs in the clear
Courts argued Aimster's conduct was "willful blindness." BitTorrent's choices made its position stronger
Copyright (BitTorrent)
Anti-money laundering (Bitcoin)
Content/communication (Tor)
Legal battles and tech evolution continues until its too hard to install a filter
Incentive issues (most shared NOTHING, tons of fake files + viruses)
Lots of attempted market mechanisms (from game theory to tokens) to fix incentives
Forking vs governance
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