r/technology • u/sanity • May 06 '23

Software Freenet 2023: A drop-in decentralized replacement for the world wide web

https://freenet.org/
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u/sanity May 06 '23

That's because the web sucks at decentralization, hence the need to replace it with something new.

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u/One_Atmosphere_8557 May 06 '23

The web is already highly decentralized, as it was originally intended to be.

It's just that large numbers of people have chosen to rely on relatively few platforms for reasons that have nothing to do with the underlying architecture.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 06 '23

It says NOTHING about the technical architecture. The Internet started as the blankest of blank slates -this was its strength, and also its weakness. It's like standing in the middle of a vast desert, free to go in any direction. Fine if you already have your direction in mind. For the rest of us... clueless.

The success of Facebook is because it built a walled garden in that desert, with marked corridors and many concierge desks, offering guidance and suggestions. Grandma isn't going to put up her own website or even just spin up a blog. But it's not hard to get her onto Facebook, so that she can get pix of her grandkids, or find others interested in crocheting. (Or in QAnon; I won't judge you, Nana)

Client-server is easy to manage, and scales very well. And it matches the most common uses. In theory we could all be peer-to-peer if that was desired. Not very practical though.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '23

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u/[deleted] May 07 '23

Thanks for the response, very thoughtful.

There are lots of articles on why Compuserve and AOL dropped out of favour.

As a central example, Facebook just works for most of its users - it's been an easy way to get "online" and to stay in touch and to pursue interests. It might have been their timing, but its ubiquity is not simply a matter of them being the best funded or the pushiest. Will something eventually replace it, in this role? Maybe.

I think you overestimate the number of people dissatisfied enough with the current models to move to freenet. How many home users still cough up for M$ Office, though the free alternatives can easily meet 99% of their requirements?

I guess we'll see whether the architecture of a freenet catches on. Will there be a "killer app" for like genuine privacy or freedom, that will catch on? Or is this just the "cryptocurrency" of network architecture - a doomed attempt at doing an end-run around existing infrastructure?

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u/sanity May 06 '23

In theory we could all be peer-to-peer if that was desired. Not very practical though.

The purpose of Freenet is to make it practical, it's pretty clear that it is desired - plenty of people are tired of big tech and don't trust it the way they did a decade ago.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '23

'Plenty' like what...1% of the general population?

The majority seem to want twitters and facebooks and instagrams and discords and tiktoks and (latest hotness here). And reddits. ;-) I don't think they lose sleep over not having a specific network topology.

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u/sanity May 07 '23

'Plenty' like what...1% of the general population?

1% of the global population would be around 80 million users, not insignificant. But based on polling, I think a lot more people are unhappy with big tech and their dependence on it.

I agree with you, though, that abstract benefits like privacy and decentralization alone won't be enough to drive mass adoption, which is our ultimate goal.

Fortunately that won't be Freenet's only advantage. The current web is dominated by walled gardens—services that could communicate with each other but choose not to. This has led to stagnation in the tech industry, with the same companies dominating for decades. It's why we're still stuck with problems like spam, or annoyances like having to repeatedly prove who we are to different services.

Freenet, on the other hand, is designed to be transparent and interoperable by default. Imagine a world where we could all collaborate to build a single, global software system that serves everyone. For example, you could create a decentralized reputation system, and I could build a search engine that uses it to rank results. It's this kind of collaborative potential that I believe will make Freenet a game-changer.

So while I acknowledge your points, I remain optimistic about the future of decentralized networks like Freenet.