> Everything that uses it [...] only does so because a simpler, cheaper, central alternative is somehow seen as bad.
Walled garden ecosystems have a fairly obvious downside — ultimately someone has to get disproportionately enriched and empowered. By using the word “somehow”, you insinuate it’s actually hard to see this.
No, that's just a problem that lives in a different layer of how we organise the world. Right now we haven't decided to operate these centralised things as services provided by society, to society. Right now, they are owned by people who build up heaps of money, which in our current system translates to unwarranted power.
These are choices which can be changed.
Trying to work around the current system via a blockchain is certainly an option. But it's going to be worse in every other way except those externalities. And so they will tend to creep back, and the blockchain will be pushed out.
That’s a tad bit non-specific. Do you claim walled garden ecosystems are acceptable if a state government controls it? Save for possible science fiction AI administered states, this would disproportionately empower state executives, no?
It's non-specific because I'm not trying to write a manifesto right now. Nation state or sub-national state governments are not the only way to organise things that are done by society and for society.
Walled garden ecosystems have a fairly obvious downside — ultimately someone has to get disproportionately enriched and empowered. By using the word “somehow”, you insinuate it’s actually hard to see this.