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RE: A Fully Decentralized Internet

in #technology8 years ago

Just an observation here... the "Decentralization" graph you show in the article is just another form of centralization: nothing is able to traverse all the way across the graph without going through the central node.

The internet is actually designed to support fairly robust decentralization (though there is an issue with the size of core routing tables). The problem is the incredible cost of making the required meatspace connections. Wireless mesh networking has limited potential here, because there's only so much bandwidth available before interference sets in. Hardwire connections allow for far greater bandwidth, but of course cost huge amounts of money to go any real distance.

The interesting possibility that cryptocurrencies provide is realistically paying for actual network utilization, based on the route your packets actually took and the latency involved. That might make it practical for innovative solutions for longer-distance transport. But for "last mile" connections you'd need a LOT of people using devices that self-organized into a mesh. That's going to be challenging to create.