I'm amazed that digital networks have been around for 65 years, the internet for 35 years, and we still don't have words to talk about networks.

There's only a weak consensus about the meaning of network topologies like "federated", "decentralized", "distributed".

And there's no terminology for talking about the human control of those networks.

People use "decentralized network" and assume that you know that they mean human control.

Others think that human control and topology are the same thing.

Imagine if all nostr relays were owned by one corporation. The network topology would still be decentralized!

"Decentralized network control" doesn't cut it because "control" in terms of networks usually means automated.

Network science is a field of study but the language is still pre-scientific 😔