I would like for a more decentralized scenario to win, but it seems to me that people tend to gravitate towards centralization. It happened so many times already that it would be surprising if it doesn't happen again.
More likely: centralisation has its pros and cons, as does decentralisation. There will always be some forces pushing towards centralisation, and other forces pushing towards decentralisation. The further we move towards one, the greater the push will be towards the other.
Things centralize for a reason - and it has been around befofe nation states and capitalism's modern conception. Decentralization seldom scales better.
Even if they somehow wound up in a magical perfect coop start state without rivals centralization would emerge and prevail yet again unless there were extremly significant changes to ensure different outcomes.
I think people want decentralization, all else equal. Unfortunately, like most things in life, we don't have a way to just change that but keep all else equal.
And centralization of decentralized entities isn't a question of if - it's a question of when.
Decentralization has so many downsides compared to centralization when things are going "right" that centralization has competitive advantages over decentralization.
To me, decentralization isn't just about avoiding control. I think that the network effects that decentralization yields are the only way to compete with an established network. It's hard to get people to agree on which centralized alternative to use, but if structured correctly, there can be just one decentralized alternative with several benevolent forks with different features, but a shared data store. No one's in control, and everybody wins.
It is already both (for the most part). The problem is that people will always prefer centralization.
From shopping malls, capital cities, credit cards... to Internet platforms, the unavoidable fact is that centralization makes things easier, cheaper and more convenient.
Even federated-by-design technologies like email have slowly turned into mostly centralized services. Just having to pick an email provider is too much work for most people. Gmail is good and free, so everyone uses that. As long as servers cost money and big corps can offer free things to get user share, decentralised services are doomed to never become mainstream.
This is fundamentally a problem with centralization that is probably temporary. Decentralization is coming in a big way and when it does these sorts of shenanigans will not be so easy to pull off.
You still have people with their own wallet. But the vast majority of people don't want to deal with the complexity of decentralization so they prefer centralization
I don't agree. Centralised control would mean one person can change anything. Decentralised doesn't mean that nobody can propose a solution - only that others have to agree on it before it goes live.
How do you imagine decentralised decisions happening otherwise? Everyone choosing their own solution without ever talking to each other and seeing what is most popular?
The cons of centralization are significant. The decentralization narrative spawned because the world has become increasingly centralized. It's a balancing force.
I would argue consolidation and centralized elements are inevitable, the promise of true decentralization is like socialism: a promising theory but failed application.
I think centralization could work quite well, it just hasn't in practice. When thinking of benevolent dictators, there's obviously some advantage there compared to uncoordinated decentralization.
That said, I'm not stupid enough to think that's a good idea, and welcome any innovations in decentralized coordination.
reply