An interesting article I saw (from 2019) describing the potential intrinsic tendency for decentralized platforms to collapse into de facto centralized ones.

Author identifies two extremes, "information dictatorship" and "information anarchy", and the flaws of each, as well as a third option "information democracy" to try and capture the best aspects of decentralization while eschewing the worst.

Someone said the link is broken so here it is: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The author seems to be injecting their own version of what they want federated software to be on top of what the fediverse is.

It's not the panacea that will break the capitalist oligopoly and bring about The Revolution.

It doesn't require an idealized future where ever person is tech literate enough to host their own email server.

It's not a system for close friends to congregate in small social circles.

It could be a lot of those things, but the author is projecting. It's software that is decentralized, can be connected to willing partners, and each instance has the freedom to set their own rules about who they do and don't communicate with. The author seems to be adding their ideal goal of what the software should be to what it is.