This is one of the most important aspects of Web 2.0 that web3 advocates have tried to retcon. That generation also started with optimistic creators talking about decentralized, user-owned, open protocols (open standards, even!) that would empower people. Guess how it played out.
People seem to be redefining Web 2.0 as Facebook, etc, that own data, but Web 2.0 at the time was platforms like WordPress, Odeo, Six Apart, Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio.us that had open data and interoperated. flickr.com/photos/ross/49490…
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Oh it absolutely is. If there's a piece of code running somewhere that can be corrupted or arbitrarily changed by someone then it will be exploited.
The technology exists to make code that can only be changed if the majority of actual users of said code agree to the change.
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Not sure that sounds like a great protocol for patching exploit bugs. "I'm sorry, we can't patch log4j until the votes are counted"
It's also not what happens in practice in cryptocurrency circles either. See the 2013 bitcoin accidental fork, for example.
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That's actually what happened to Compound recently. It's still much better than an arbitrary shutdown or upgrade because there's no recourse *at all* then.
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Yes, centralization by company is a big threat epeus.blogspot.com/2010/06/s… but monoculture is also a threat too indieweb.org/monoculture and cryptocurrency amplifies that tendency
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Are there more than one implementation of the e*t*h protocol? As far as I can tell everyone participating in the network is expected to run the same source code.
Jan 9, 2022 · 5:43 PM UTC
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