The potential of decentralization to contribute to a more equal society is huge. Where government and corporate control of information are causing harm, decentralized technologies can give power back through new data ownership and governance models. So why are these technologies not more widely adopted? What are the main obstacles to decentralization, and how can we solve them?
In our latest research report, Decentralization Off the Shelf: 7 Maxims, we interviewed 53 practitioners and led workshops with a total of 85 participants to find out. Here are the 7 key changes we need.
This kinda makes me sick to my stomach -- essentially, she's saying that a peer-to-peer internet is great because companies will be able to have better uptime.
She doesn't even cover the clearly obvious economic aspects of this -- why would I run an IPFS node if it just benefits the company and not me?
(IPFS dev here) I think she does, but perhaps the discrepancy may be that she's got a different target audience: the established website owners? Also to be fair, there's not much space in these sorts of articles LOTS gets cut by editors and -- from having done something like this -- you have to hit this absuuuurdly high level and can't sink into details much at all. I'm actually pretty surprised at the level of technical detail in this article -- i would've expected much more to not make it past the "remove jargon - write for the average user" media filter. I've done some interviews / articles that ended up annoyingly waaaaay more high level and completely missed my expected mark. You might want to write to the author, too. :)
There will be incentives in the future, both in terms of promoting a good seeding/leeching ratio like bittorrent ("bitswap"), as well as http://filecoin.io/
And how would you deal with materials that could get you either dead or imprisioned? Can you elect not to host content? For example, in china, you have a situation where you can be materially affected by political content.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/10/in-china-... Or what if you happen to live in a country hostile to LGBT content, like russia or Zimbabwe, where it may be dangerous to host such content?
Because you might like that company/organization/website. As the IPFS dev said in other replys in this thread, you can choose which sites you want to help
You're right, it isn't. It's largely a for-profit industry, even the 'non profit' colleges. Most teachers, especially adjuncts, make very little in comparison to what the students are paying -- look at NYU, 50k/year per student in a class of 20 where the teacher is paid 5k/class. The math doesn't add up.
Would a self organised University be possible in the US system?
A group of teachers using cheap space and online communications to provide lectures/support/assessment with students then taking exams accredited by another institution? Possibly with sponsorship/organisational support from a voluntary sector organisation?
That is basically how most Universities outside Oxford/Cambridge/Edinburgh/Aberdeen started in UK in the Victorian period. The University of London was set up to validate degrees provided by various constituent colleges in the regions. There was a strong non-conformist (Baptist/Methodist) input on the funding and organisational side.
Faculty would love to disintermediate the ever growing administration. Accreditation is an issue, and overcoming the importance of brand. Competing with the for profit niche might work though.
