Thread by @mala

News! I’ve joined the Filecoin Foundation @filfoundation, and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web @ffdweb! I’ll be helping technologists, archivists and teachers building the #dweb. We aim to restore the net’s superpower: distributing knowledge and autonomy to all. 1/19

My work at the Filecoin Foundation will concentrate on stewarding the governance of the Filecoin ecosystem, funding critical projects around it and advocating for the future of Filecoin and its stack of decentralizing tools: IPFS, libp2p, etc. 2/19 fil.org

I’ll also be building out the FFDW, our charitable wing, whose activities include preserving and distributing the world’s knowledge, supporting the dweb community, funding related R&D, and educating the public about the benefits of a redecentralized net. ffdweb.org

As Rohit Khare (rohit.khare.org) defined it, “A decentralized system is one which requires multiple parties to make their own independent decisions.” Good for network routing; good for a free and open society. Decentralization is a technical choice with social effects.

Paul Baran, whose famous diagram is below, injected a decentralized vision into the internet at its birth. Decentralization made the net resilient, independent; antifragile, rhizomatic. Whatever you call it, it worked. For a while.

Decentralized systems can prosper, but a centrally-run society or network can be easier, less expensive, and simpler to understand. We centralize power to help others, fix problems; out of fear, or out of greed. It’s often easier to centralize; hard to walk it back. 6/19

Once power is centralized, the few who remain who can change society rarely choose to give away their status by diluting it. Once the walls are built, the doors are locked fast. The center holds. 7/19

That’s what happened to the web. Whether out of good intentions, seeking short-term efficiencies, or for profit, a web where anyone could run a server or start a blog has become a place where most write on Facebook via Amazon servers, then pray to Google to show their work. 8/19

A network without “Kings or Presidents” driven by “rough consensus and running code” ended up with winners and losers, policed by private security outside company app stores. Giant corps feed reward pellets to captive consumers instead of empowering their fellow citizens.

That’s a net (and a world) that’s easier to manage and exploit in many ways. But we lost the societal benefits of the net. It is no longer a store of knowledge and equal debate and exchange. Nowadays, as Nathan Robinson says, “The truth is paywalled but the lies are free.” 10/19

Baran’s humble about his decentralization work:“I did a little piece on packet switching and I get blamed for the whole goddamn Internet! Tech reaches a certain ripeness…the pieces are available…the need is there…the economics look good—it’s going to get invented by somebody."

The need for redecentralization is evident. The web, as TimBL said, is for everyone. It was always too powerful to be run by a fistful of geographically, culturally homogenous tech giants. The fruits of new technology are ripe again. New pieces are appearing on the board. 11/19

On the edges of the centralized web the pioneers of a new web are building. From Europe, Matrix. In NZ, Secure Scuttlebutt. From China to Ecuador, Rojava to Honduras, a million experiments in cryptoeconomics. Closest to my new home, we have IPFS and Filecoin. (Try them all!)12/19

Hackers and companies are building new tools and expanding old research: Satoshi consensus, zero knowledge proofs, object capabilities, content-addressable routing, local and distributed ML, secure languages, open and unlocked hardware. 13/19

It reminds me of the ferment of activity before the first web browser brought the internet its world wide fame. SMTP and USENET and Gopher and WAIS, digicash and PGP: they showed out what was within reach. The popular net was stitched together from that cambrian explosion. 14/19

There are many lessons to be learned from the mistakes of last time. Back then, the Net was decentralized by a very centralized crew: rebelling without much risk at the heart of the richest nations on earth. It’s not surprising that recentralization benefitted us the most. 15/19

This time, the #dweb needs to be built closer to the periphery -- by and for those who need it, who hurt most under our current status quo. We need to plan decentralized solutions to privacy, security, safety and trust for everyone, up front. 16/19

But for all of today’s net’s flaws, it gives us a strong foundation. We can build a new network in the shell of the old. Join us! If you want to know more, you can find others at getdweb.net 17/19

If you’re part of the Filecoin ecosystem, check out @FilFoundation's projects and opportunities. And jobs! We’re growing as fast as that network is -- or trying to keep up, at least. fil.org 18/19

Or if you’re already building a piece of the decentralized web, and wonder if @ffdweb can help you with resources, connections or funding, mail me at [e-mail]. Or chat with me on mastodon.social/@mala. I'll be happy to help. Fin! 19/19