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Problems of Not Enough Centralization Today? (lemmy.basedcount.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So, a lot of us here are probably more focused on the problem of there not being enough "decentralization" today, but do you ever feel in some areas we have the opposite problem, of not enough (good) centralization?

For example, all the random linux distro flavors (or for those unaware of "linux distros", it's like a lot of similar computer programming projects that are scattered instead of all working together as one project). I don't necessarily think of this as a big problem, but it seems to duplicate unnecessary programming efforts instead of centralize coding labor in to creating "one" bigger and better distro.

Maybe there is some happy medium between centralization and decentralization for some things? The problem with too much centralization, is, say there is one "main" project, a lot of people might disagree with something about it and want to "fork off" and create a competing project. So now you have two projects. But then within those groups some people may disagree and want to go in a different, "better" direction (as they see it), so they might "fork off" as well, leaving us with four projects.

With large corporations, you see this, there may be multiple "big" stores that are similar but different, and then lots of small business competitors. I guess if there is "too much" decentralization, it can lead to feelings of fragmentation and a lack of unity maybe? Maybe this is a post to reflect on the problems of decentralization?

Do you think decentralization is causing some problems today, or that there isn't enough "good centralization" in some areas, or is the problem just too much "centralization"?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Agreed, and since we are on Lemmy this easily makes me think of the Fediverse. Even something that is born to be decentralized, like the ActivityPub protocol, ends up having trouble scaling up properly because of blurry standards. Ever noticed how shitty federation is with Mastodon and other microblogging platforms? Or most other federated platorms that most people here haven't even ever heard about?

And the reason for this is pretty simple too. Decentralization and open standards are hard to build. Centralized systems are easier and more profitable for the developer (it's nice being the boss and being able to do whatever you please on your platform).

But at the end of the day most people value user experience the highest and that is why, I think, decentralized stuff tends to struggle. So, TL;DR, we don't need more centralization but we do need for decentralized stuff to be as good as centralized stuff is.

Paging in @[email protected] .