[HN Gopher] The Impervious Browser: Your Portal to the P2P Internet
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Impervious Browser: Your Portal to the P2P Internet
        
       Author : janandonly
       Score  : 121 points
       Date   : 2022-04-09 15:13 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (newsletter.impervious.ai)
 (TXT) w3m dump (newsletter.impervious.ai)
        
       | petesergeant wrote:
       | As someone not embedded in "web3" or whatever they're calling it
       | these days, this just reads like parody? Is there anything of
       | value behind it all?
        
         | yayr wrote:
         | If this stack gives the control over data back to the users,
         | there will be some value. But I assume, even with this stack
         | there will again be tendencies towards centralization driven by
         | convenience, efficiency and simply bargaining power...
        
         | can16358p wrote:
         | If the browser has actual native support for interacting with
         | EVM chains and IPFS, supporting user-friendly features like ENS
         | or UD domains, allowing anyone to publish a page or an app in a
         | decentralized manner, it certainly has value especially with
         | the current centralization (e.g. FB/Twitter/Google: censorship,
         | banks: control over money etc).
        
       | egberts1 wrote:
       | Wow. An impressive write-up (albeit from a marketing POV). While,
       | I am vaguely familiar with the various P2P and its protocol
       | specs, the other protocols are newer and was not able to
       | "quickly" find its protocol specs.
       | 
       | Now we wait for various 3rd party evaluators to assess and audit
       | (and of course, publish).
       | 
       | Be nice to see a demo ISO or something for evaluation.
        
         | janandonly wrote:
         | There is a waiting list on their website:
         | https://www.impervious.ai/contact/
         | 
         | I signed up for it just now... Indeed, it sounds very good, but
         | the proof is in the pudding.
        
       | sirmike_ wrote:
       | I am not clear or see the obvious problem this would solve?
       | 
       | Could someone help me understand the user story/user case for the
       | problem this solves today for a user?
       | 
       | I honestly have a hard time with these p2p/decentrialized/
       | blockchain/*xyzcoin items. After you have seen one, they all
       | kinda cast the same shadow.
        
       | binarymax wrote:
       | Finally something that looks interesting and useable coming from
       | the "web3" crowd.
       | 
       | But I'm a skeptic. I'll remain a skeptic until I see something
       | that works as well as our existing tools. I'll also remain a
       | skeptic if I need to join the cryptocurrency cult for it to be
       | usable.
       | 
       | Most of the things listed here are worthwhile ideas. I want
       | safety and privacy on the web for everyone. But I don't want to
       | get involved with Bitcoin if that's a prerequisite.
       | 
       | The world needs this in a way where they can install a browser
       | like any other, and just start using it. No wallets, no angle.
       | Just let it be a free tool of communication, collaboration and
       | knowledge sharing.
        
         | legrande wrote:
         | Ethereum _et al_ are toy systems. We 're only barely scratching
         | the surface of what we can do with them. The early Internet was
         | a toy system, and look how it blossomed into this marvel we
         | call the The (modern) Internet.
         | 
         | Failure is an opportunity to start again more intelligently. I
         | have no doubt the Internet will eventually become distributed
         | and decentralized. Just add time and political will.
        
           | koehr wrote:
           | The misconception here is that the internet is not
           | decentralized. The original idea of the internet is to be
           | decentralized. There are just very large centralized silos
           | built on top of its structure.
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | I think you and GP are both right. The original idea and
             | design of the internet is decentralized, but we're at a
             | point where it's pretty hard to do that. Email being the
             | best example. I'm quite the self-hoster and I've self-
             | hosted email before, but even I pay for it now because
             | unless you own your IP address and have invested years into
             | building reputation, deliverability is abysmal. And one
             | accidental click of "this is spam" by a recipient and your
             | reputation is shot to hell.
             | 
             | So philosophical you're right, it's decentralized. But
             | practically, it's more complicated.
        
           | dmitriid wrote:
           | > The early Internet was a toy system, and look how it
           | blossomed into this marvel
           | 
           | Juicero was also a toy system, and it crashed and burned.
           | What (except wishful thinking) makes you think crypto is the
           | Internet and not Juicero
        
           | warpech wrote:
           | > The early Internet was a toy system, and look how it
           | blossomed into this marvel we call the The (modern) Internet.
           | 
           | Not really. The early Internet was a tool for the army and
           | the academia. Web3, so far, is a tool for speculants.
        
             | can16358p wrote:
             | Regular money and computers can be tool for many, including
             | bad actors too.
             | 
             | Just because it's an open platform that makes speculative
             | assets emerge doesn't mean the underlying technology and
             | philosophy has great potential. I'm pretty much sure that
             | the killer app of crypto is not here yet, and when it is
             | here, it will change many views.
        
               | creata wrote:
               | > I'm pretty much sure that the killer app of crypto...
               | when it is here... will change many views.
               | 
               | What convinced you?
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | > _The world needs this in a way where they can install a
         | browser like any other, and just start using it. No wallets, no
         | angle. Just let it be a free tool of communication,
         | collaboration and knowledge sharing._
         | 
         | If you don't care about identity, payments, etc then is there a
         | reason you couldn't do that with this browser? But also, as
         | much as I don't like the near-monopoly situation, we do have a
         | pretty usable mature set of options for that already in Chrome
         | and Firefox.
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | Did they release it? If it is not FLOSS, I wouldn't trust it.
        
       | throwmeariver1 wrote:
       | Yeah, sorry I believe it when I see it. That just reads like a
       | fever dream especially when looking at the credentials of their
       | 11 employees on LinkedIn and reading their "API" documentation.
        
       | olah_1 wrote:
       | They desperately need to rebrand if they hope to succeed.
       | 
       | The knight helmet logo and the name are not appealing in the
       | slightest to any normal person. The whole brand image just
       | screams "edgelord".
        
       | can16358p wrote:
       | Don't know whether it succeeds or not, but we definitely need
       | more projects like this supporting the decentralized Internet,
       | especially dApps, for better adoption.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | black7375 wrote:
       | Among the P2P browsers, beaker looked pretty good.
       | 
       | - https://beakerbrowser.com/
       | 
       | Although their journey has stopped.
       | 
       | - https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/discussions/1944
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | anderber wrote:
         | I loved Beaker Browser and I'm sad when it stopped being worked
         | on. Such a great tech (and not crypto currency related P2P)!
        
       | chaostheory wrote:
       | Are all the features actually decentralized? If not, what's the
       | point of X without Y if it's just another centralized service.
        
         | ibz wrote:
         | They say it's built on top of the Lightning Network, so yes.
        
       | jeroenhd wrote:
       | I was hoping this would be a browser with better
       | IPFS/IPNS/Tor/I2P support, but sadly it's just another Bitcoin
       | project. They seem to use IPFS, so that's nice, but the
       | cryptocurrency side makes me very wary of this project.
        
         | mike_d wrote:
         | Transport (Tor) or somehow not using your protocol of choice
         | was never the problem. The blocker to solving centralization
         | has always been that people who browse HN suck at making things
         | usable.
         | 
         | Building a usable frontend first is never going to get you
         | excited about a project, but the only way we are going to get
         | mass adoption of decentralization is to make it as simple as
         | TikTok or Chrome.
         | 
         | I'm also sorry it is just "another bitcoin project." If you
         | happen to have $20 million kicking around to fund the project
         | so they don't have to depend on crypto, by all means reach out
         | to them. Alternatively, use that big brain of yours to figure
         | out a better way of funding a company that doesn't make money
         | off its users.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | Jonovono wrote:
         | Just thought i'd jump in with a couple cool projects I have
         | heard of recently that may interest you (i'm not affiliated in
         | any way, just think they are cool):
         | 
         | * https://agregore.mauve.moe
         | 
         | * https://beakerbrowser.com
        
           | cookiengineer wrote:
           | Note that development of beakerbrowser has been dropped for a
           | couple years now. The hyper/dat protocol fatigue is also in a
           | heavily unstable state.
           | 
           | Which kind of confirms the previous commenter's argument
           | about all things crypto being about pump n' dump projects
           | that get abandoned quickly after their coin offerings.
        
             | olah_1 wrote:
             | > The hyper/dat protocol fatigue is also in a heavily
             | unstable state.
             | 
             | What makes you say that? Hypercore just launched a major
             | upgrade that includes multi-writer support.
             | 
             | > Which kind of confirms the previous commenter's argument
             | about all things crypto being about pump n' dump projects
             | that get abandoned quickly after their coin offerings.
             | 
             | Hypercore is not related to any coins. https://hypercore-
             | protocol.org/
        
               | cookiengineer wrote:
               | > Hypercore just launched a major upgrade that includes
               | multi-writer support
               | 
               | Yes, where hypercore 8 is incompatible with hypercore 7's
               | wireformat, kind of confirming my point.
        
               | olah_1 wrote:
               | I misread your first comment. I thought you meant that
               | the project was dead haha.
        
             | pfraze wrote:
             | FWIW it wasn't a coin thing, we just couldn't make beaker
             | into a product enough people wanted
        
         | can16358p wrote:
         | On the other hand, cryptocurrency side actually makes me
         | _interested_ in the project.
        
           | olah_1 wrote:
           | Same. Because it allows for transparent business models.
        
         | tomatowurst wrote:
         | You are right to be wary, if there is a cryptocurrency element
         | to a project I immediately stop paying attention because it is
         | almost certainly geared towards inflating the token values
         | through raising ridiculous amount of money.
         | 
         | The people that come out to defend those projects almost
         | certainly owns token. How is this not an unregistered security?
         | 
         | There's a reason the Bitcoin developers:
         | 
         | - were anonymous
         | 
         | - released bitcoin _weeks_ after the ruling on e-gold
         | 
         | - continues to remain anonymous
         | 
         | They clearly knew the implication of e-gold and US security
         | laws.
        
           | smeej wrote:
           | Consider reading the article.
           | 
           | This is built _on_ Bitcoin. There is no other token.
        
         | rmbyrro wrote:
         | Would there be a better way to implement P2P payments without a
         | cryptocurrency?
         | 
         | The fact they're using Bitcoin, instead of Ethereum or another
         | altcoin, is a positive for me.
        
           | everdrive wrote:
           | I don't want to implement P2P payments. I don't even know
           | what this means. Does it just mean "sending someone money?"
           | Why would I want that to be built into a browser? I'm a bit
           | confused why this is being pushed.
        
             | dfas23 wrote:
             | uhm, to pay for things without using your credit card?
        
               | omginternets wrote:
               | I remember when web3 used to mean _opposing_ the de facto
               | requirement to pay for the information. This goes against
               | my principles.
        
               | olah_1 wrote:
               | Who creates/curates the information? They gotta eat...
        
               | omginternets wrote:
               | Not everything has to be commercial. And in fact, most of
               | the good stuff -- e.g. HN comments -- are not commercial.
               | 
               | I don't mind paying for certain things, but the crypto
               | trend is very much pay to play.
        
               | olah_1 wrote:
               | > Not everything has to be commercial.
               | 
               | HN comments aren't free to host though. There is compute
               | involved. How are they paying for that compute?
               | 
               | If it is out of boredom and good will, that's cool. But I
               | very much am keeping that in mind when I comment here. I
               | don't expect a hobby site to stay up long term because
               | they'll just shut it down when it stops being fun.
               | 
               | If HN is paying for this from advertisements and job
               | postings, well there is your answer. It is commercial.
        
             | barnabee wrote:
             | You shouldn't necessarily want it built into the browser
             | but you might want it built into the internet so that you
             | can avoid the layers of fees, commissions and surveillance
             | capitalism.
             | 
             | For better or worse, for most people the browser is the
             | internet right now.
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | It means there's an easy way to "pay" for "premium" content
             | in very small forms. Like "here's 15 cents for letting me
             | read this article." No ads, no subscription and sending all
             | your personal info, no email spam. I think if it works, it
             | will change everything.
        
               | bfdm wrote:
               | There is no reason for that to be baked into the browser.
               | That can absolutely be a cross-browser/platform layer
               | that won't need to worry about dying as a walled garden
               | with no visitors.
        
               | smeej wrote:
               | Lightning Network and Bitcoin are inherently
               | interoperable.
               | 
               | Just because one browser bakes it in, it doesn't mean the
               | resources created are limited to being accessed through
               | that browser.
        
               | johnny22 wrote:
               | I agree with you for the end product, but it seems like a
               | fine idea to push integration as far as you can in the
               | alpha phase to see what's necessary.
        
               | Spivak wrote:
               | I feel like this is overly idealistic, it will be $1.99
               | with ads and personal info harvesting and spam. Why
               | wouldn't you?
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | I'm sure some will want to do that, sure. Especially the
               | marketing driven blogs/sites.
               | 
               | But they'll be competing against people that don't do
               | that, so unless their content is _really really_ good and
               | unique, they 'll lose in the market and either adapt or
               | die. Maybe some mega celebrities could pull that off, but
               | it would be pretty rare.
               | 
               | I mean, they could easily be doing that right now. $1.99
               | is high enough that the problem of micro payments isn't
               | really a problem at that price. But they don't because it
               | would be a terrible strategy...
        
               | throwaway81523 wrote:
               | > But they'll be competing against people that don't do
               | that,
               | 
               | That's already the case, yet there is no way to escape.
               | We need to go back to browsers that don't take over our
               | computer (harvest personal info etc).
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | > That's already the case
               | 
               | How is anybody accepting micro payments currently? What
               | technology do they use?
        
               | throwaway81523 wrote:
               | I don't mean micropayments, I mean we have an ad infested
               | surveillance web competing with an informative web, but
               | because of how browsers work, the mere presence of
               | informative sites doesn't much help escaping from the ads
               | and surveillance. The problem is browsers enabling the
               | surveillance and we should back away from that. Gemini
               | had the right motivation, but made what I'd call newbie
               | errors. I'd rather have something about like HTML3.
        
               | didericis wrote:
               | The closest thing to micropayments deployed at scale
               | right now seems to be youtube superchats, which use
               | traditional banking stuff.
               | 
               | I believe there are people creating micropayment
               | superchat like systems for crypto, but its difficult when
               | its not integrated into the browser/not integrated into
               | content as well as it is with youtube.
               | 
               | Brave has a pretty cool tipping feature that I've used a
               | handful of times, but it's not integrated into the user
               | experience in a way that people actually use/very few
               | people seem to know about it or use it.
        
               | zozbot234 wrote:
               | The cost for the average Bitcoin transaction is a lot
               | higher than 15 cents. And likely to go higher as
               | transaction fees make a higher and higher portion of
               | miners' reward. The power use involved in mining "coin"
               | does not simply pay for itself.
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | no not for lightning network. fees right now are 1
               | Satoshi or about $0.04 USD.
        
               | leesalminen wrote:
               | 1 Satoshi today is well under $0.01 USD. Maybe you meant
               | $0.004 USD?
        
               | drexlspivey wrote:
               | it's actually worth $0.0004 USD or 0.04 cents
        
               | didericis wrote:
               | Lightning mitigates high transaction fees by pooling.
               | 
               | I agree with long term concerns as block rewards
               | decrease, though, which is why I prefer Monero's tail
               | emission to Bitcoin's model.
               | 
               | Part of the brilliance of block rewards is it actually
               | _does_ pay for itself. Miners are rewarded for their
               | efforts, and the reward amount varies based on the needs
               | of the network.
               | 
               | At least that's been true for the past decade, prior to
               | getting towards the supply cap. It'll be extremely
               | interesting to see how miners behave as the rewards
               | decrease in reality vs in theory. My personal belief is
               | that the lack of tail emission and resultant price
               | increase will keep bitcoin alive indefinitely, but make
               | it more and more static overtime, even with stuff like
               | lightning, and turn it into a kind of reserve note. This
               | is not a novel theory and is what many are seeing
               | happening.
               | 
               | I'm most bullish on Monero long term/think it's extremely
               | under-appreciated as a viable means for the mind of
               | decentralized uncensorable micro-transactions people in
               | the space all fantasize about.
        
               | andai wrote:
               | Here's an interesting article from 2003 about
               | microtransactions that argues the main issue is actually
               | mental burden of paying for hundreds of tiny things every
               | day, ie. "mental transaction costs". https://web.archive.
               | org/web/20031202032448/http://www.shirky...
               | 
               | The concept seems to first appear in Nick Szabo's paper
               | in 1999:
               | 
               | https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/micropayments-
               | and-...
               | 
               | Things like Brave's Basic Attention Token seem to solve
               | this problem in the sense that it's completely automatic
               | based on the amount of time spent on each site. But then
               | you have to use Brave, and you have to use BAT...
               | 
               | In my case, most of the money would go to YouTube, Reddit
               | and HN. (I think Brave actually has a way to send the
               | money to individual creators on a site rather than to the
               | site itself. But I haven't used it personally.)
        
           | zamadatix wrote:
           | Why is it suddenly a requirement the browser also handle P2P
           | payments in the first place?
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | It's not a "requirement" but monetizing content is a really
             | hard problem that hasn't been solved real well. The most
             | common strategy is ads, but everybody involved (by that I
             | mean the producer and the consumer of the content, not an
             | unnecessary third part like ad sellers) hate that solution.
             | There are some attempts like Medium and their subscription
             | model and Brave's BAT. These solve the problem of "micro
             | payments" but they still require a third party and they
             | have significant limitations (especially that content
             | providers don't have any say on "price"). Direct payments
             | so far suffer from the "micro payments" issue in that small
             | payments aren't feasible since credit card companies and
             | other third parties take a non-trivial portion.
             | 
             | So yeah, if a browser can fix this problem with P2P
             | payments, that would be huge.
        
               | rollcat wrote:
               | Paying content creators is a very valid problem, however
               | using proof of work in place of CC processor fees is just
               | moving the problem around - and arguably, making it
               | worse: you're essentially taking on environmental debt,
               | which all of us will eventually have to pay down.
        
               | joshcryer wrote:
               | What "monetizing content via a crypto browser" really
               | means is "voluntarily submitting yourself to this
               | 'decentralized' control structure we have set up." Which,
               | in the case of Bitcoin, is "controlled" by 5 mining pools
               | at any given time, who are all, one way or another, going
               | to have to submit to government control at some point in
               | the future. Meanwhile the whole thing about
               | "decentralized identifiers" is people using the system
               | will be connecting to central data centers.
               | 
               | As far as 'micropayments,' that is begging for a solution
               | to a problem that doesn't exist. I'll give you an
               | example. Netflix users watch about 100 hours of their
               | service a month, for $15.59. So 15 cents an hour. There
               | is no scenario in which Netflix benefits from creating a
               | virtual currency in their system pegged at 15 cents an
               | hour (think Flix-Bux), people are already pushing back
               | hard on these internal 'currencies.' The irony is not
               | lost on me the amount of energy used by smart dudes to
               | create a browser that is proposing virtual currency which
               | has been utilize to nickle and dime gamers from
               | adolescence to adulthood (robux, vbucks, the plethroa of
               | 'money sellers' on many platforms).
               | 
               | Nothing about this is about freedom, this is all about
               | changing one central control structure for another, with
               | little crumbs of implication that it's better for users
               | and sellers alike.
        
               | zamadatix wrote:
               | There are a lot of really hard problems and as big as
               | fixing any such really hard problem would be the question
               | is why this needs to be handled by the browser itself not
               | why this would be a good problem to have solved.
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | Well sure, it could be implemented without the browser,
               | just like FTP and other things were back in the day
               | before they got implemented in the browser (which made
               | browsing an FTP server accessible to tons of people who
               | didn't know how/why to use an FTP client), but it's a lot
               | less user friendly. Instead of configuring your
               | preferences or clicking an "approve" button or whatever,
               | you have to provision yourself a wallet, click an "I want
               | to pay $0.15 for this article", get the receiver's wallet
               | address, copy it over to your wallet. Copy over a
               | transaction ID, click send, wait for an email
               | confirmation that includes the access code, copy paste
               | that into the original article, and you're golden. Or all
               | of that can just happen seamlessly in the background if
               | the browser knows how to do it. Also, I don't see an
               | average user _ever_ going through those hurdles, so
               | probably the idea dies on the vine and we 'll end up
               | stuck with ads or centralized subscription models for
               | eternity.
               | 
               | AFAIK they aren't advocating for the banning of other
               | browsers (like Chrome), so if you don't want to use a
               | browser that has support for that protocol, you can
               | choose one that doesn't.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | bromuro wrote:
               | > It's not a "requirement" but monetizing content is a
               | really hard problem that hasn't been solved real well.
               | 
               | It's not a "really hard problem" - cryptocurrency is a
               | solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
        
           | bromuro wrote:
           | > Would there be a better way to implement P2P payments
           | without a cryptocurrency?
           | 
           | Yes: to not implement them at all.
        
             | powerslacker wrote:
             | Can you elaborate?
        
               | pmontra wrote:
               | Not OP but why do I want payment implemented inside the
               | browser?
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | For this and sibling comment asking basically the same
               | question, I typed an answer here that I hope is helpful:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30969911
        
               | barnabee wrote:
               | I don't know about you but I hate ads and like to pay for
               | my content, I also don't see why I'd want to give money
               | to intermediaries every time I pay for something.
               | 
               | Why would I be against payments being built into browsers
               | in a standardised and open source, open standards way if
               | it might eventually solve those problems?
        
               | blitzar wrote:
               | > I don't know about you but I hate ads and like to pay
               | for my content
               | 
               | Since when has paying for content meant no ads?
               | 
               | I pay for a newspaper - ads, I pay for cable tv - ads, I
               | pay for the internet - ads, I pay road tax - ads, I go to
               | the cinema - ads, I buy a ticket to a sporting event -
               | ads.
               | 
               | That is before we get to the influencer product placement
               | world.
        
               | robbedpeter wrote:
               | You can get ad-free content. Things like substack,
               | YouTube premium, Netflix, some newspapers, lots of
               | patreon clients, etc.
               | 
               | That ads still exist in other places where you've
               | ostensibly paid for the content doesn't invalidate the
               | op's preferences.
        
               | z3c0 wrote:
               | Personally, I don't understand why a browser needs
               | payment functionality at all, P2P or not.
        
               | rollcat wrote:
               | I like Apple Pay support in Safari, and use it wherever
               | it's available.
               | 
               | I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies by any measure, but I
               | can understand why people would like that.
        
               | beebeepka wrote:
               | Care to explain what does it mean to have payment support
               | in the browser. Not entirely sure what apple pay is
        
       | bob55 wrote:
        
       | drexlspivey wrote:
       | How do P2P video calls work? For a 10 people call do you need
       | N*(N-1)/2 = 45 connections? Do residential internet connections
       | have that much upload bandwidth ?
        
         | mhitza wrote:
         | Skype used to be P2P before the Microsoft acquisition. HN tread
         | when it was switched off
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915479
         | 
         | It offloaded routing to peers that had better
         | hardware/bandwidth. The downside was that many people were not
         | aware of that at the time, myself included, thus on some
         | computers Skype would seemingly consume more resources than
         | expected.
        
           | dmitriid wrote:
           | The reason wasn't Microsoft acquisition but the rise of
           | mobile. P2P does not work well on mobile devices.
        
       | labrador wrote:
       | * Zoom, without Zoom.         * Google Docs, without Google.
       | * Medium, without Medium.         * WhatsApp, without WhatsApp.
       | * Payments, without banks.         * Identity, without the state.
       | 
       | A few quick points
       | 
       | - The percentage of internet users who care that the above
       | services are centralized is likely less than 1% and probably much
       | less
       | 
       | - If the open source movement is any indication, the percentage
       | of people in that small group who want to pay to build such
       | decentralized services is also very small
       | 
       | - There is no mention of a moderation slash policing mechanism.
       | The idea that "The State" will allow people to trade child porn
       | or buy and sell ghost guns without interference is ludicrous
       | 
       | My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn't
       | been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks trend
       | towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints and
       | requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or maybe
       | there is one and I haven't heard about it)
        
         | SkyMarshal wrote:
         | _> My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn
         | 't been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks
         | trend towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints
         | and requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or
         | maybe there is one and I haven't heard about it)_
         | 
         | There's a generalized version, if not one specific to
         | blockchains and cryptocurrencies: In complex, non-linear
         | dynamic systems, the critical resources of the system tend to
         | concentrate and consolidate over time, due to positive
         | feedback, winner-take-all, and similar effects inherent in
         | these systems. Decentralized systems are subject to these
         | dynamics too, as we're seeing with both mining/validating
         | concentration and ownership of the wealth in these systems.
         | 
         | People are aware of the problem, but it's probably unsolvable,
         | deterministically at least.
         | 
         | In broader society, in the past, such trends have tended to
         | eventually result in some kind of collapse or revolution
         | (French, Bolshevik, etc). It's like there's a natural asymptote
         | to the concentration of resources, that forces a (painful)
         | reset once they become too concentrated.
        
           | webmaven wrote:
           | _> In complex, non-linear dynamic systems, the critical
           | resources of the system tend to concentrate and consolidate
           | over time, due to positive feedback, winner-take-all, and
           | similar effects inherent in these systems. Decentralized
           | systems are subject to these dynamics too,_
           | 
           | I've come across various essays and posts that make this
           | point tangentially, but not much that investigates it
           | directly. If you are aware of any, links would be
           | appreciated.
           | 
           |  _> It's like there's a natural asymptote to the
           | concentration of resources, that forces a (painful) reset
           | once they become too concentrated._
           | 
           | Likewise, if you know of work to determine how concentrated
           | is _too_ concentrated, that would be interesting.
        
         | neilk wrote:
         | You just described a business model for startups. And likely
         | this startup!
         | 
         | Any decentralized network will create abundance, but also all
         | the problems of abundance - identity, filtering, search,
         | stability, etc. Some trusted gateways or intermediaries are
         | then created to solve those problems. And then we're in a race
         | to get a monopoly, one that well-capitalized startups can win.
         | 
         | A "browser" is a play to control or at least have influence
         | over all of these experiences, just like IE was for Microsoft
         | or Chrome is for Google.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | rvz wrote:
       | Not to be confused by: https://impervious.com creators of another
       | browser called Beacon. [0]
       | 
       | As for this, Lightning is not even Bitcoin, so what is the point
       | of even mentioning 'decentralization'? Lightning is known to be
       | significantly (and growing to be) more centralized and defeats
       | the whole point of it all since there is a relentless push for
       | people to use that instead of using Bitcoin on-chain. Lightning's
       | centralization is inevitable.
       | 
       | Hence this, does that also mean Bitcoin has failed in its
       | original purpose if everyone is going to use Lightning?
       | 
       | [0] https://impervious.com/beacon
        
         | haswell wrote:
         | Given the similarities (they're both browsers, both focused on
         | decentralization, etc) it seems like a pretty major naming
         | conflict. Very confusing.
        
         | bongodrum wrote:
         | And we have uninformed comments on Lightning Network (LN - have
         | you ever tried to run on its own? As Elizabeth Stark said
         | Friday - "LN has its own native token called sats and it will
         | be work stacking some"! Education is critical
        
         | bongodrum wrote:
         | And FUD - try running Lightning Network (LN) separate from
         | Bitcoin - it's called a NETWORK, not token / shitcoin!
         | 
         | As Elizabeth Stark Said Friday: "LN has its own native token
         | called sats, and it's maybe just worth stacking some"!
        
       | jccalhoun wrote:
       | All of these "X without X" claims seem to be misleading. I
       | thought it was actually able to communicate to people using zoom
       | but it looks like it is just their own conferencing software and
       | so on?
        
       | DoItToMe81 wrote:
       | Is this another Chromium fork?
        
       | unfocussed_mike wrote:
       | Sounds more like it's going to be: _browser, without the ease of
       | use_
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | mftb wrote:
       | Keep your marketing, just show us the code.
        
       | al2o3cr wrote:
       | What's the business model? A "traditional finance" version of
       | this would likely be aiming to get lots of transactions it could
       | extract a couple basis points out of, but that seems impossible
       | with a p2p architecture.
       | 
       | All those "MSCS required, PhD preferred" hires they're making
       | ain't working for free...
        
       | TeeMassive wrote:
       | As with all these initiatives, I salute them and morally support
       | their development. However how do I go installing it and start
       | using it right away like very other piece of software I use? If
       | I, a tech savvy guy, can't do it, then how do I even tell my
       | normie friends how to use it?
        
       | root_axis wrote:
       | An interesting concept in theory, minus the cryptocurrency
       | nonsense. Unfortunately, a browser is already a pretty ambitious
       | project even using an open source engine, adding in a gigantic
       | bespoke productivity suite on top of it is a massive undertaking
       | - it's a certainty that this software is going to suck _hard_
       | compared to the alternatives, but... maybe an MVP is enough to
       | gain traction, if they have a shitton of funding and the project
       | stays alive it might be worthwhile with a few years of
       | engineering time.
        
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