- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
A few months ago, I posted here about my excitement for Plebbit and the promise it held for decentralization. I was convinced that a p2p social platform with a unique UI could be the future, with different UI of all social media…including Lemmy, a true alternative to centralized services. I saw the potential, and I wanted to believe in it.
Plebbit promised a lot of an innovative interface, decentralization, community driven governance. But after months of delays, vague updates, and little to no progress, it’s clear they never delivered. They had the right ideas but lacked the follow through to make them a reality. What was once an exciting project quickly turned into an example of what can go wrong when the hype overshadows the substance.
I wanted Plebbit to succeed, but in the end, I’ve realized that I’m better off sticking with what actually works.
If Plebbit had actually followed through on its promises especially with its vision of being a decentralized Reddit alternative. it could have been the best. The idea of a selfhosted platform, where users had true control over their content and communities, was a dream for those of us who wanted more than just another centralized app. It had the potential to be the go-to solution for anyone seeking real decentralization and p2p freedom. But unfortunately, that potential was never realized. Instead of delivering on its ambitious promises, Plebbit became just another project that failed to meet expectations, and the opportunity for a truly revolutionary platform faded away.
That’s just pedantic, you will always need to know where the door is to enter the network, but in both cases even if that specific server that you know gets taken down you can still enter by any other server you might discover in any other way. It doesn’t cease to be centralized because you are using the same single node to get into the network, that would be like claiming email is not federated because you only use Gmail, or because you need to know the email of the person you’re writing to.
I get your point, those systems make it harder to take down things permanently but they aren’t as resilient and perfect as people paint them to be - an it has nothing to do with being pedantic, it is just the reality of things.
It’s still a decentralized system, and saying that they aren’t because the default is for everyone to use the same node is either disingenuous or missing the point entirely. By your definition decentralization is impossible, because you always need to know at least one node in the network in order to enter.
Unless someone finds a way to advertise nodes that doesn’t depend on the entry point then yes. Consider this example: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/1b2460bd5824170ab85757e35f81197199cce9d6/src/chainparams.cpp#L112 if someone takes down those domains it is game over for a new node until someone updates the code.