People keep thinking decentralization fails for technical reasons, when it’s economic. Without an economic model nobody can afford the massive effort required to make software polished and usable.
As a general rule I’d say polished user friendly software takes 10X the effort at a minimum vs software only nerds can use. That’s probably an underestimation. For consumer software it’s probably 100X. It’s because computers are incredibly confusing and hard to use and it takes immense effort to overcome that.
(If you don’t agree that computers are confusing and hard to use, you are part of a tiny highly educated minority.)
I’ve said this around here like a hundred times because it feels like I am the only one who gets it.
The tech to create an excellent decentralized network with an excellent experience and without the weaknesses of Mastodon exists. It doesn’t get used because nobody pays for it. Centralization gives you an economic model from either directly charging for access or selling data or ads, and none of that works in a decentralized world.
As a general rule I’d say polished user friendly software takes 10X the effort at a minimum vs software only nerds can use. That’s probably an underestimation. For consumer software it’s probably 100X. It’s because computers are incredibly confusing and hard to use and it takes immense effort to overcome that.
(If you don’t agree that computers are confusing and hard to use, you are part of a tiny highly educated minority.)
I’ve said this around here like a hundred times because it feels like I am the only one who gets it.
The tech to create an excellent decentralized network with an excellent experience and without the weaknesses of Mastodon exists. It doesn’t get used because nobody pays for it. Centralization gives you an economic model from either directly charging for access or selling data or ads, and none of that works in a decentralized world.