Few people know that the original web was designed a decentralized space where everyone could browse and edit thei own pages. The original browser, called worldwideweb, was a browser/editor, where anyone could make edits to the web as well as browse the web. What happened next was that VCs removed the editing functionality and created web based silos which locked in the users. We now have a chance to add back the decentralized functionality to the web, returning it to its decentralized roots.
Discussion
We may eventually see the Nostr event message protocol implemented on the hardware infrastructure level, which will additionally help decentralization.
Could be! But the web is already designed to integrate reading and writing nostr events via http GET and PUT. You can also point to a relay using an HTTP header.
a-men and hallelujah 🙏🏼🫶🏼💪🏼🤙🏻🫡
Did VCs really remove the editing capability from the web?
AFAIK the restrictive nature at the time was a lack of web servers to store web pages on in an affordable way. If you werent a student with access to a home folder on a university server, or a rich entity able to afford your own T1 line, your hosting options for serving your pages and media were few and far between and expensive (about $30-50/monthly adjusted for inflation).
Thankfully offerings like Anglefire, Geocities, Hotmail provided for free services. It was either IE3 or IE4 that brought about asynchronous javascript and wysiwyg editors empowering non devs to make formatted HTML.
Id argue the masses gave up editing their own page layouts because of convenience provided by consistent views and content discovery.
We've never 100% lost Web 1.0 though. Its alive and still decentralized.
It was really early with mosaic and netscape. Marc Andreesen was the person that did it. Read Tim's book to learn more.
Few people know that the original bitcoin was designed a decentralized asset which everyone could send and storage their own vault. The original vault , called seft custody vault , was a bitcoiner’s thing, where anyone could make transactions to any vault as well as storage in the vault. What happenning next was that VCs are removing the storage functionality and created centralized vault based silos which locked in the users. We now have a threat to the decentralized functionality to the seff custody, removing it to its decentralized roots.
I was thinking the other day about why everybody does not have a place to post their content and then the distro will be for various places with different UX and UI.
It’s so backwards that we go to other people’s places to post our content and then we do it over and over again, and at the end of the day may lose everything. Most of the time other people monetise our content and we are not even part of the deal.
Separating content from the context (representation) is oversimplification and part of the reason (e.g. Xitter posts work differently than IG or TikTok).
Yet, the personal depository of data is the most decentralised way. The communities are the verticals that bring the context. Allowing access to various distros flips the power dynamics if you can withdraw and opt out.
Text should be no different from (licensing) music, videos or other content.