Redecentralize

Web3 means a lot of things to a lot of people. In this context the decentralization enabled by blockchain or federation is probably what the GP is talking about. With a decentralized app you can't be banned in the same way (though this presents other problems).

While blockchain based technologies are often cited as an example of Web3, and some of the worst hype offenders are pushing this. It's not exclusively blockchain.

In some ways Web3 is a return to earlier internet where there were open protocols rather than everything being controlled by companies. Redecentralize[0] has a great set of founder interviews talking about some of the projects and challenges.

To be clear it's not necessarily anti-company, just a recognition that a handful of companies controlling everything is problematic. Coupled with a recognition that running at the scale of the Big 5 is prohibitive (e.g. server costs, preventing malicious actors, people to handle problems).

The UX around these things is hard, though getting better. Mastodon[1] is a reasonable alternative to twitter now (doubly so if you cross-post).

Gitcoin[2] is a good example of a Web3 app (all the core functions are smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain).

There are plenty of example of Web3 apps(dapps) on Webby[3] and DApp.com[4] (though the latter you have to wade through all the Decentralized Finance stuff).

[0]: https://redecentralize.org/interviews/
[1]: https://mastodon.social
[2]: https://gitcoin.co/
[3]:…

I'd love it if this sort of thing worked. I see a few problems:

1) All the people are on facebook. Only a % use firefox (as opposed to chrome, and all the others,) so this doesn't actually mirror your existing friend network, let alone solve the problem of making it easier (which is the only way people will actually switch.)

2) Facebook and google chat already have a list of your friends/contacts right there to hand. Firefox would need to gather this data somehow, which would either be intrusive (think LinkedIn "import your gmail contacts") or annoying (I am not going to mess around exporting things manually, and neither will the real humans).

3) Existing network implementations. As per Adam Lerymenko's "Redecentralize" talk[1], all the existing services are based on centralised network architectures. Unless Mozilla build their own central network of contacts etc, we'll be stuck using the existing monolithic sites that don't respect privacy as backends. Which (as per the Talkilla example) isn't the point. If Zero tier one et al are successful one day, then maybe we'll all be own our own separate VPNs with our friends (although that doesn't mirror the global social graph either.)

[1] http://redecentralize.org/interviews/2013/07/30/02-adam-zerotierone.html

Is it naive though? Naivety is a suggestion showing a lack of wisdom or experience. Stallman has this in spades. I'd peg this as 'idealist'.

To wit, imagine a world where:

* Everyone has a block of static, globally routable IPs (no NAT).

* Consumer broadband etc was less asymmetric, and not strangled my media conglomerates.

* Everybody ran a decent operating system with a package manager that handled updates for all their software.

* Server and P2P software was so easy to use that it became invisible

* The Internet hadn't become synonymous with 'the Web' for most people in the 90s/early 2000s. (Remember when we used to talk about 'the Web' just like how we talk about 'the Cloud' now? That's because, as far as most people are concerned, it's the same thing.)

... in such a world, suggesting everybody run their own server doesn't seem so crazy. In fact, there's still a lot of grass-roots belief in these ideals : http://redecentralize.org/

I think that we are about to see a new strain of F/LOSS motivations and advocacy emerge, centered on human rights and political freedom, anti-surveilance, privacy, resilience, and so on. On one level I expect it to continue the "redecentralize the web"[0][1][2] movement from a few years ago, but sideline the mostly cryptocurrency focused aspects of "web3"[3] in favor of the "fediverse"[4][5][6] and "local first software"[7].

[0] https://redecentralize.org/

[1] https://ruben.verborgh.org/articles/redecentralizing-the-web/

[2] https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet

[3] https://medium.com/@shevski/how-decentralised-are-you-a6539eeb27ff

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

[5] https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-the-fediverse-and-can-it-decentralize-the-web/

[6] https://thenewstack.io/why-developers-should-experiment-with-the-fediverse/

[7] https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/

There's both an "About" link (text) and a list of alternative internet projects:

http://redecentralize.org/about/

What's this all about?
Over the last few years, we've noticed quite a few people trying to spread the Internet out again. Back to the edges, like it used to be.

Sometimes they do it for privacy. Sometimes they do it for resilience against disaster. Sometimes they do it just to bring playfulness back to computers and how we use them.

We've a list of the kind of projects we mean (any missing? send a pull request). On this site, we interview one of those projects each month.

https://github.com/rossjones/alternative-internet

One I remember is MaidSafe: https://maidsafe.net/

There is a website out there that has interviews with about a dozen people who are working on alternative ways of doing the internet. Shallow google isn't throwing anything up I'm afraid.

Edit: Not quite what I thought I remembered but here it is anyway:

https://redecentralize.org/interviews/