Posted by Çağan Mert İŞLEK on June 08, 2024
When the computing was a new thing, every service was local and apps were just user interfaces for these services. Since “dot com” era started, most services started to leave our devices and turned into something we need to pay additionally. web1 was completely decentralized, which means it was letting everyone to create and consume content without any paywall or advertisement, but it required some technical skills to create content. By the invention of web2, the requirement of technical skill for creating content was gotten rid of as the difference of web2 from web1 is the ability of capturing the state of the user. Companies had the database to allow anyone to create and consume content from it. When we think about that, we can easily see that this (since all these databases have their owners) innovation caused centralization of data. Centralization of data means the owner of you, your personality, and your data is someone else. If I need to explain, you have to accept everything the company wants you to, your personality can be changed in time by the algorithm of the system, and your data is personal asset of the company even they sell it for money. It already started to feel like a dystopia but it is only the beginning.
When we talk about the development of social media, first era is called “Early Beginnings” which is made up by decentralized protocols connecting multiple servers. This system has gone as a victim for “Embrace, extend, and extinguish” as big tech companies tried to extend these decentralized protocols and only other big tech companies were able to provide enough engineering power to support new features which caused small servers started to go incompatible, then abandoned these protocols to force users to have accounts to chat with their friends. Then “Modern Social Media” era came and forced people to have accounts on multiple exact same purpose apps just to be able to communicate. Also this era is when “free-to-use” meant your data is the common property of the public and hate became the official language. When said how could it be worse, “Diversification” era came which makes people feel the diversity in their bones. The main message this social medias are trying to give is “You are nothing, you are the worst, you don’t even worth using the same app with them, go kill yourself” and it done what it supposed to. Many suicided just because they saw others having picture perfect life and they are struggling. If you asked how these social medias managed to do that, they made everyone filter the bad from their life and make the good look more, so only people know the bad in their life and thought everyone else is having picture perfect life just like others thought for the one suicided. Noting that these companies cannot be sued for these since you already accepted the responsibility of your actions even you are affected by their app and your data is the common property of the public.
Turning back to generations of web, web3 is all decentralized and encrypted. If you need to modify data you need to make the majority support you. Is this great or blocking the outcasted people to use internet? Think that you are unable to post your ideas just because you don’t have luxury device to connect to the web. Also most nodes (copies of same data, ones able to vote for data) today are run by big tech or on their paid cloud services. In addition to all these, web3 relies on millions of devices have the exact same 1300 gigabyte of data running 24/7, which is not that environment friendly.
Just like everything was perfect until now, super apps are started getting popular. This also means to interact with people migrated to a super app, you also have to have the same super app, just like the way “Modern Social Media” era made you maintain exact same account on multiple exact same purpose apps, again just to be able to communicate. Also means everyone have to hand their data to a single centralized server. Please turn back to the first paragraph to see what the centralization means to people rights. History repeats itself and this time it is worse.
Now humanity has two choices: choosing to decentralize in correct way or watch how everything turns into a dystopia. If it is not already…
“He has blue tick, he is someone important probably!”
Since Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk and became the chosen victim for Musk’s big dream of making a western version of far eastern toys, blue tick became a paid service. Because of this change had more popularity than the criticism against it, Meta also started to do the same. 40% of your feed is advertisement unless you pay for the Premium. Also you will be labeled with how much you pay. Then X got tiers to make people pay more than ever, is people that blind? Taking my word back, many subscribed to highest. Paid social medias are not important as there is fediverse the decentralized social media. Right? You just have to be the one to get all criticism for having an account on fediverse. You will be reviled and even labeled as anarchist even you are against Nostr the anarchist social media. People will stay away from you, you don’t follow the design guidelines for life in favor of being yourself. You don’t need anyone else than yourself, right? You can hire yourself, be your customer. But don’t get to need someone else, you don’t have blue tick. You probably don’t have enough money to pay, you have more than enough but no blue tick, no service for you. Utopia of the nescient rich.
Turning back to where you said enough of paid social medias. You got a fediverse account and you liked it! You started recommending it to your friends but they criticized your decision of joining fediverse and TheProtocols ecosystem. Then their dear Meta made the Threads app, a fediverse instance from the team of Instagram. They joined to Threads and made fun of you as you are using fediverse, not Threads. Their faces when you send them follow request from your choice of fediverse instance will be so fun as they don’t know they joined fediverse. It will soon get better as they will see your posts with no character limit while they are limited to 500. With this exasperation, they will take their lesson to listen your words. Also they are now following accounts to learn and discuss, not hate, causing who know more to become more popular. Then TheProtocols (the super protocol) got to known, you became the local help for newcomers as you are already using it. With an email from HereUS Support which sent to evangelist users, you decided to have your own network. Then you reached thousand users from your hometown, so you disabled new logins and enabled tiered premium subscriptions. Isn’t it where all started? No, it is not. This time you know everyone in your network in person. Also this subscriptions worth as it is a single subscription that provides everything instead of being social media only, they trust who is keeping the data, they can get faster and better customer service, and able to move to another network if they are not OK with the situation. Since everything is federalized, they will lose nothing for moving. This is also great for you as you turned your seek for better to a money source.
“Where is the website I clicked? Oh, here it is under all these ads…”
Since first clickable online advertisement sold in 1993, the advertisement techniques developed a lot. Then advertisements were small piece of the websites, now the web pages feel alienated. Advertisements now are even pretending to be a button on the page to fake the user to it. Worse than all, these advertisements usually causing you to end up with a malware in your device. Say hello to your new friend, hacker, he will be following every move of yours, what you write, what you create, what you do, what do you play, who are your friends, where do you live, and more you don’t want to know about. I don’t really know why they do this while they can just buy your data for cheap prices, maybe he can wait for a holiday for a discount. Except these web ads, there is also native ads which are worse. Facebook, Instagram, X, and even File Explorer on your Windows PC has these native ads. This ads look like any other content on the app and you can get rid of them only if you buy their tiered premium subscriptions and follow the design guidelines.
When TheProtocols which letting developers to develop without need of a database gets popular, the required budget for the development instantly gets lower as there is no need to pay for a great size of database to have all user data and the system requirement of the web serving server lowers as there is no need for database software and database connection. As the development becomes cheaper than ever, there is no need for that much advertisement. Less distraction, more content. Also having a notable home network is even better since big networks can have agreements with apps to have premium experience of these included in your super subscription. Reminding that you can migrate to another server whenever you want, so there is no need to be uneasy for not having benefits other networks have. You are not the one need to work hard to find the best experience, networks are racing for being the best.
“What is the point of learning something while AI can do all for us?”
“If you are smart or successful, you are nerd. AI can do all for us, no need to work. Follow your guidelines provided to you by the birth, open TikTok to watch someone doing counterintuitive, then switch to Instagram to see someone living the perfect life, then scroll your X feed and show some hate to people! But do not forget to pay the monthly price of iCloud+ 10TB, Google One 2TB, YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, Galaxy AI, Google Chrome Plus, Spotify Premium HiFi, ChatGPT Plus, Notion Plus, Meta Verified, X Premium Plus, Netflix Premium, Discord Nitro, Playstation Plus and all other subscriptions available. Also buy the latest iPhone Pro Max, Apple Watch Ultra, iPad Pro, AirPods Pro, and MacBook Pro 16” $9500. If you ask where to make money, it is none of my business, find a way, maybe become a criminal? They say AI is incapable of crime. But no worries, since they developed an AI software engineer, they can develop themselves to be able to commit crimes including rape, kill, set fire, terrorism, and more…” What you felt reading is how you will feel in the future if people remain silent.
“Benefits of decentralization are not that obvious.” - Rémy Prud'homme
Everything is better decentralized. So why there is still centralized services? Here is the reason: While tech is centralized, user must work hard to maintain same account between multiple apps. If all apps become decentralized, companies must work hard to maintain their user base. Also they can’t impose their barely legal terms of service which means your data is not common property, they can’t play with your personality using algorithms, they can’t disinform you for their financial anxieties, and you are protected from any other breach of human rights. This is why they do disinformation against decentralization. Let’s look at some one the disinformations done:
“Decentralization means web3.” No, it is not. web3 is distributed. The reason they tell it is to make decentralization the target of the activists.
“Fediverse promote disinformation by making posts uncensorable.” No, it is not. Fediverse is collection of thousands of moderated instances. If the moderators of an instance not moderating well, moderators of other instances will have no choice but banning the whole instance. If most instances ban an instance, this banned instance would be technically banned from fediverse, so moderation should be done correctly.
“Decentralized services require technical knowledge.” Yes, it require technical knowledge but not more than what other app require. No matter how you read this, if you can, you have the enough technical knowledge.
“Decentralized services have less features than centralized ones.” If they can name one feature that you can only have on a centralized service…
“If I don't see it, it didn't happen.”
I mentioned data market a lot while most have never seen one before. I will tell you where to find one. First of all download Tor Browser, setup bridges, find the link of the hidden wiki, and enter no man’s land, known name Deep Web. Now continue to dig until Charter I. Surf there to find your data on sale. If you are looking for leaks, they should be at Charter II which is invite-only. Just remember, more you dig, more chance of what you are doing to be illegal and more dangerous. Once you enter Charter I, there is no guarantee of not being found dead on your bed. Regardless to the fact any of your data can be bought by anyone, you still use these services. If people start using decentralized services, this data market will collapse. A world where serial killers can’t track your precise realtime location is possible, we can do this.
"People hate what they can't conquer." - Andrew Smith
Every day, the harassment being done every day is increasing on centralized social medias. This is called freedom by their owners. But this so-called freedom galvanize extremists and further expose racial and religious minorities to hate speech and trauma. This surge in hateful language has been accredited to various trolling campaigns. Also they are laying off their moderators as not needed anymore since hate is the new language. Bad words are the national anthem of these platforms. This is probably caused by the replacement of meritocratic blue tick with plutocratic blue tick but it is not our title now.
As you can remember, fediverse has better moderation than centralized social medias. Which means showing hate is a lot more harder. In addition, people affect each other and fediverse started as the place where there was only the ones working for more secure, more privacy-friendly, more respectful place. All newcomers are getting affected by the environment and becoming more respectful. People love hate speech because of social media, now only social media can fix it.
In a dystopian future, the centralization of data and the dominance of big tech companies lead to a world where personal data is a commodity, personal freedom is compromised, and hate speech is rampant. The evolution of the web and social media platforms, whilst technologically advanced, is manipulated to exploit and control users. The rise of 'super apps', tiered premium subscriptions, and intrusive advertising further exacerbate this situation. The market for personal data thrives, contributing to a culture of fear and distrust. Education is devalued as AI is touted as the solution to all work, leading to a societal disdain for intellectualism.
In contrast, a utopian future leverages the power of decentralization to protect personal data and uphold individual rights. This vision is marked by the rise of decentralized technologies, where data is no longer a commodity but is owned by the individual. The development of TheProtocols ecosystem reduces the need for expensive databases, making development cheaper and reducing reliance on intrusive advertising. Tiered premium subscriptions in this context are a fair exchange for value-added services rather than a means of exclusion. Education is valued, and hate speech is nearly eliminated due to better moderation and a culture of respect that pervades the fediverse.
Choice is up to people. Which is the world be want to live in?
This work is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0