Decentralization Education is a short 10-15 minute segment where we explain technology terms and topics that we often reference during our regular podcast, The Decentralists. We recognize that not everybody has deep technical knowledge on this topic, so we figured, “Why not explain it? It makes life easier when you don’t have to research it on your own.”
So let’s start from the beginning: What is Decentralization?
Decentralization Education is a short 10-15 minute segment where we explain technology terms and topics that we often reference during our regular podcast, The Decentralists. We recognize that not everybody has deep technical knowledge on this topic, so we figured, “Why not explain it? It makes life easier when you don’t have to research it on your own.”
So let’s start from the beginning: What is Decentralization?
Henry: Hey everyone. It's Henry Mike and Chris of decentralization education. Now, decentralization education is our short 10 to 15 minute segment where we explain technical terms and topics that we often reference during our regular podcast. The decentralized we recognize, not everyone has the depth of technical knowledge that Mike or Chris may have and of course, I'm number one in line for that. But the fact is we figured why not? Let's explain them. It makes it easier. You don't have to research them. Let's start right in the beginning. Mike, what is decentralization?
Mike: Decentralization is the removal in terms of computers. So, this is what we're talking about, but it applies everywhere. But decentralization is essentially this notion of moving the levers of say power and control, it could be in a computer system. It could be in a government away from, a central control point and out to what they call the edge. So, in computing terms, that means moving the control of say search. The results you get from a search, an internet search away from Google's servers or anybody's servers and moving it out to the edge of the network, which means when I search it's my browser on my device and you put it in terms of what's been happening with say COVID, an example of the decentralization of government is when initiatives dispensing vaccines or kind of restrictions and things go are not done at the federal government level.
They're done either at the state province or city and township level. So, that is a form of decentralization and the idea is what we've been seeing in government in a lot of cases is in some cases, centralization is a good thing. The purchase, the bulk purchase of vaccines. That's an example of where centralization having one government body, or one body that does bulk purchasing can make an advantage. So, if you think about in the computer world, having basically a word processor that you can access say from the cloud that's centralization, but having the ability to control what each individual endpoint has at the endpoint level, that's decentralization.
Henry: How's that have to do with social media?
Chris: All social media right now has a middleman and that would be the centralized surfers. Every message you send to Facebook doesn't go from you to a friend. It goes from you to a central server and then it goes to your friend.
Henry: Even with messaging apps, Chris?
Chris: Even with messaging apps. That's right. So, what decentralization means is we're removing that middleman room, removing the central server and we are making these connections direct. So, instead of going from you to a central server to your friend, it is from you to a friend, another term for this is a peer to peer.
Henry: Yes. So how does this help us?
Chris: It helps us in many ways, for one thing, it makes the endpoints a lot shorter. So, how they say, the fastest way from route A to root B is a straight line works the same way with social media. So, that's one benefit of it. Another benefit of it is the problem of middlemen is they could be listening. If you remove the middle man, the middle man can no longer listen. The middlemen can no longer follow you around the internet
Henry: And target you with ads.
Chris: That's right and finally, one further, benefit of decentralization is it solves what I to call the keys to the castle problem. What this basically means is let's say you have a Fort and some bandit is trying to get into the Fort. You could build a moat, you could build a draw, you could have, your troops at the top, with their boiling oil. It doesn't really matter. None of, none of that stuff matters if the bandit has the keys to the castle and that's the problem with centralization is that there's a whole lot of folks who have the keys to the castle on, and all they have to do to get in is put the keys in the luck with decentralization. What you're doing is you're not having one big castle. You're having a whole lot of mini castles spread out. and all, because one person has the keys to one castle doesn't mean they have the keys to another. So, if they're trying to get valuable data, it's going to be a bigger problem for those bandits to try to open up many locks.
Henry: So, I guess that means that if indeed it's decentralized and there's no centralized, server or authority that, and you mentioned you can't be targeted with advertising those algorithms that so much business is built on top of they can't run.
Mike: They could run Henry, I think to be more precise. They could run but you would have the choice as to whether they ran or not.
Henry: Ah, you can give them permission or not.
Mike: Exactly, so the best way for the average person to think about what decentralization, what benefits these centralizations have for you, to me, the most powerful one is you have ultimate control. I mean, right now the reality is what is the real benefit of a centralized Facebook? You think about it or WhatsApp or YouTube or any of these things, the benefit, it really is only to Facebook or to YouTube, right. Because what they're doing is, they're saying, hey, look, all I need to do is put my, all these YouTube videos and all of these pictures and all of these user accounts.
In spot instead of a million spots or a billion spots, I put it in one spot, and then I basically, all I'm doing, the only benefit my users are getting out of centralization is I'm kind of maintaining your address book. It's like I, Mark Zuckerberg has the global role its X and everybody can't talk to each other. Unless mark Zuckerberg says yes or no. and that's, that's what decentralization will do for all of us. If you want to talk to me, Henry, you are the one that determines at you, and I are the ones that determine we want to talk to each other. We don't need Mark Zuckerberg's approval. We don't need to use mark Zuckerberg's servers. We don't need to be victims to Mark Zuckerberg's algorithm.
Henry: Fantastic. Okay. So, how does this relate to peer social and our new app Manyone?
Mike: The peer social foundation has been working for years to research a viable way to provide what I like to call a practical person, focused decentralized technology. So, what we want to do is take decentralization. Lots of people talking about it, take it from this theoretical to the practical and the way you do that is you basically build a mobile app, which is what we've built iOS and Android, and allow everybody to, at the very least start with what I'm calling self-sovereign messaging. So, rather than if you look at WhatsApp as an example, because they're the most glaring right now with their May 15th ultimatum is if you're on WhatsApp, you are using an encrypted messaging platform that now you have to agree to with Zuckerberg to no longer make it encrypted. He gets unencrypted access to your newsfeed just to sell you stuff.
Henry: Exactly. Well, put.
Mike: But the last thing I need is another freaking newsfeed. That's trying to sell me something. Especially my secure messaging news feed. So, we get rid of all of that and we say, no, no, no, you take this, you load it on your phone. I load it on my phone. You and I connect Henry, it's up to us to connect. We connect directly, we exchange and I don't even need your phone number. I pop up a QR code, you scan it. You and I are connected and then I can message you, you can message me. We can send pictures and things back and forth and there's nobody trying to use that information to say, oh, Henry needs a new pair of shoes or nobody trying to do, sell us canoe trips or any of that. It's literally you and me exchanging information privately securely and if we choose anonymously.
Henry: Wow! So, that's no one's watching. So, indeed it sounds like it's inherently private, completely private and you are in control.
Mike: That's exactly it. Decentralization is the future.
Henry: Thank you very much, gentlemen, at decentralization education, we're here to answer your questions. If you have any topics or questions that you want answered, just drop a line to info@manyone.one.
Mike: Thank you, Henry.