this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025

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How can we build a new user-owned and -maintained internet? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago by sighofannoyance to c/asklemmy

70 comments fedilink hide all child comments

How can a group of volunteers build at least the tech for a replacement for the internet?

I was hoping that each individual user could run and maintain a piece of the infrastructure in a decentralized grassroots way.

How can users build a community owned and maintained replacement for the internet?

I hope that we can have our own servers and mesh/line/tower infrastructure and like wikipedia/internet-archive type organization and user donations based funding.

How could this be realized?

Can this be done with a custom made router that has a stronger wifi that can mesh with other's of it's kind? like a city wide mesh? or what are ways to do this?

Edit: this is not meant as a second dark web but more like geocities or the old internet with usermade websites

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[–] Cocodapuf 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's another project I know of called MaidSafe.

They're trying to create a decentralized and autonomous mesh Internet (Hardware and all). The biggest challenge of making that work is ensuring there are enough data links, bandwidth and storage space available for the network to operate. And to make that happen, at the end of the day all that hardware, bandwidth and resources need to be paid for. So it also has an internal cryptocurrency to keep track of who is supplying these resources. You can earn this currency by providing storage and connectivity, and you'll need to spend it to use bandwidth and storage. You can use your own idle PCs to earn this currency throughout the day, but if you don't want to do that, you can also just buy some at it's market value to use the network. (Those people using the network without hosting servers are what will give the currency any value, and how the people providing lots of resources will get paid).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not a fan of essential protocols built on the foundations of cryptocurrency. Using a cryptocurrency simply adds another layer of complexity to onboarding. Along with that, because it's inherently tied to financial value, there will generally be a decently centralized component unless handled delicately.

I'm more leaning towards a protocol free to use without any need for onboarding. If Tor, I2P, Freenet, and the like were to be built on cryptocurrency, I certainly believe a lot less people would use it.

Don't get me wrong. I think crypto is great for its purpose of being an immutable global currency. But when it comes to trying to innovate existing infrastructure, it tends to be lackluster. Most infamously are NFT stunts that corporate entities do such as NFT Fantasy Football, and more niche things such as UnstoppableDomains' NFT domain name. Even Filecoin and Siacoin aim to do the same thing, but really, cloud storage is cheaper and faster than those cryptos.

[–] Cocodapuf 1 points 10 hours ago

Along with that, because it's inherently tied to financial value, there will generally be a decently centralized component unless handled delicately.

Well, as I understand it, their goal is to make something totally decentralized. That is after all, one of the primary features of good crypto currencies.

And the thing is, they're trying to build actual physical infrastructure here, people running computers and routers, and they're all using energy at someone's expense. Given those expenses, money will have to be involved at some point if it's ever going to work, there's really not much way around it. So if you want this decentralized, with nobody controlling things, I really can't see any way of doing it without a cryptocurrency.

And yeah, NFTs are garbage, no argument there. For every good use for crypto, there are a thousand truly stupid ideas.