The decentralized web: Everything you need to know
Nowadays, there's no doubt about how much our lives revolve online - even if you're just reading this on your phone while on public transportation, you'll still need an Internet connection to access it.
It becomes so pervasive in everyday life that we seldom stop and think, "how does my website know what I'm looking for?" or even "who owns this website?" That’s the reason why decentralized web became a necessity.
This article aims to explore what the decentralized web means for us today and all the worthy information related to it.
A quick overview
The term "Decentralized Web" is also commonly referred to as the Distributed Web or Federated Web.
Basically, the decentralized web is an abstract concept that seeks to reorganize the internet to remove centralized data hosting services, using a peer-to-peer infrastructure instead.
The idea was first proposed by Tim Berners-Lee back in 1989 and pushed forward by people like John Perry Barlow, who famously said, "The Net treats censorship as damage and routes around it."
The basic principle
The basic principle of dweb is moving from central to decentralized infrastructures where every user has equal rights to make changes and spread content. This creates an alternative model that could one day replace the traditional internet we use today.
Uses of Decentralized Web
There are many uses of the decentralized web. It is helpful for any kind of data that needs to be stored or shared with others, such as social media posts, personal photo albums, artwork, and even scientific research information.
The main feature of this new internet system is decentralization through the peer-to-peer network - basically, everyone using it becomes part of the infrastructure itself.
Benefits
There are many benefits to having a decentralized system regarding how we store and share data.
Security
First of all, decentralization makes it nearly impossible for any government-related agency such as NSA in the U.S., GCHQ in the U.K. or Five Eyes Intelligence Community - an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States - to censor content without users noticing at least something suspicious is going on.
Privacy
And another important aspect of living in a decentralized world is privacy... The internet has become our second home; people spend most of their time online engaging with social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter that allow them to share all kinds of information about themselves.
However, this also means that these companies know exactly what we like or don't like, who our friends are. Many other personal details - it's kind of scary to think how much they actually know about us without ever asking for permission.
Also, the decentralized web comes into play here because nowadays, most social media platforms make money by selling ads targeted at people with specific interests; if two users have similar interests, then Facebook will put ads in both timelines even though only one person has shown interest in them.
And apparently, this practice works because an average user spends around 50 minutes per day browsing the internet through their mobile device alone!
How decentralized web works?
So now you might wonder how a decentralized web works? Basically, anyone using a peer-to-peer network can set up a server, and users only need to connect with each other without having any central points of failure.
This is why decentralized web doesn't really have an official definition - it's more like the "next step" after creating the internet as we know it today...
Several projects aim at bringing this new way of sharing information online; there's Diaspora, for example, which has become popular back in 2010 but failed due to lack of interest (maybe because Facebook had already taken over even then).
Another option would be Mastodon which works pretty much like Twitter, but anyone who hosts their own node could also be part of its community.
Conclusion:
We must conclude by saying that the decentralized web will not happen overnight; it's more like a "long-term plan" if you want to think about it in those terms.
But at least there are several projects already working on making this dream come true, which shows how much people care about online privacy - who knows, maybe one day we will all be using only peer-to-peer technologies?
