But that's how we got to the current situation with something like email: A bunch of people ran their own servers because they were tech saavy early adopters. Then, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc. started offering poor email service which most people adopted. Then Google came along and had an offer that was very impressive to consumers and everyone switched to gmail over the years. Sure, a competitor CAN exist, but it doesn't because Google's product was good enough and captured a large enough market share to become the default. We even have people trying to come up with them (see Hey!)
Why wouldn't this happen with web3 servers?
Why doesn't HTTP count as decentralized? Anyone can put a server on the network by buying an IP and domain name. And how does crypto help at all with these basic network effect problems that are the reason previous decentralized systems centralized?
Re:Why Decentralization Matters (2018)
by fsflover on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @08:55AM
(#29392095)
> Why wouldn't this happen with web3 servers?
It can happen with them, and it does happen with Bitcoin to a degree. However, it's much better than full monopoly of Facebook and Youtube. By the way, there are still many alternative paid email providers which work fine for those who do not want to run their own server.
>Why doesn't HTTP count as decentralized?
To me it does. But we need more: we need decentralized services on top of it, like PeerTube.
A decentralized system driving to centralization is much better than centralized overlords having a full control over users in a walled garden reinforced by network effects. As TFA says, "Decentralized networks aren’t a silver bullet that will fix all the problems on the internet. But they offer a much better approach than centralized systems."
> Running your own servers is attractive for some, but they aren’t the majority and never will be
And it's not necessary as the existing servers federate between each other and allow the users to register normally.