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Comment by aub3bhat | Hacker News Reader

The reason these linked data, semantic web, GNU social projects end up going no where is because they put principles ahead of product. People want things they can click/tap/share and use without having to go through a manual/spec. And when the time arises to build those products one quickly discovers that the lofty principles don't match the user expectation.

Something like Snapchat that provides a very very weak guarantee of privacy but has your classmates is immensely more useful to society than a decentralized federated social network with PGP signed identities filled with crypto enthusiasts.

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Mainstream users could use such things so long as the UX was really, really good.

The problem is not the principled nature of decentralized networks, but that they have to overcome the same hurdles as centralized networks—how do you compete with Facebook when they're so entrenched?

> Mainstream users could use such things so long as the UX was really, really good.

I'm not so sure. In my experience with encrypted chat apps with non-technical people, they completely ignore any kind of security in the key exchange. They'll give you their account number to get in touch but nothing to verify the key.

I don't see this changing in the near future or at all if fundamentals of public key systems aren't going to be a part of school curricula. I'm a bit sad that it's so poorly understood as public key cryptography has really changed the world in the past few decades (can you imagine going back to a world without online banking?). The key insight to understand is that cryptography can't establish trust, only maintain it.

Exceptional UX assumes adequate education as part of the experience, if not completely obviating the need for it in the first place by creating a foolproof system that holds the user's hand every step of the way.

Those users see an extra layer of friction for no obvious benefit. "Trust" is not an issue for them, because they've never experienced someone impersonating someone else.

The reason the web is broken is because it's a meeting point for the social, commercial, corporate, personal, academic, and political worlds. All of those worlds have different demands and requirements.

You can't fix a political problem by applying technology to it. There's a persistent myth that you can, but the reality is that publicly accessible technology mirrors the publicly accessible political environment, not vice versa.

Politically, neither ordinary users nor academic experts have the leverage to enforce the kind of secure, safe, trustworthy web most of us here would want.

Banks, corporations, governments, and the letter agencies do, which is why they have an effective monopoly on the practical applications of key security.

A minority of geeks and security specialists get some crumbs from the key exchange table, but they're a long way from being able to force strong security into the popular web.

The decentralized web grew organically after the initial invention, without an overall designer. The decentralized nature of the web means there will not be an overall designer in the future. The web will never be a clean system. Clean systems cannot be easily disrupted, and do not lead to great innovations.

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