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Comment by lxgr | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, the article doesn't give any reasons as to why somebody might choose to opt-out of the network except for bad analogies:

> If suddenly my devices are going to start connecting to my neighbor's WiFi, or theirs to mine, it seems like you'd have to opt-in, right?

I can already connect to my neighbor's wifi, and they can connect to mine: Our ISP broadcasts a separate "public" SSID, which is routed over a separate IP address and available to all of their customers via a captive portal.

It also has its own bandwidth allotment (unlike Sidewalk, but bandwidth use there is probably very low).

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This has been my dream for the internet since I first saw it: a completely decentralized communications network beholden to nobody. Sure, Amazon is controlling this mesh network, but once the concept is proven, there can be/will be others. This is a Good Thing or at least a step in the right direction.

There are a couple wifi mesh networks using commodity hardware already running in different places. I'll find a list and post it later.

The key is getting the behavior normalized in broad distribution. A few specially-arranged mesh networks is interesting, but not ultimately that useful. I've long expected the likes of Linksys to deliver routers with mesh network default-on (and sensible mitigation of over-using someone's paid ISP), with much better odds of market saturation reaching the critical mass necessary for broad use.

Cuba has had an almost-mesh internet using blue tooth on cellphones for at least a decade. It’s pretty cool. I remember using it and being told about it when I traveled there in ~2013 but I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called so I’ve never been able to read more about how it came about. IIRC before the bluetooth they passed around USB thumb drives so I think it was born from that “network” of information sharing but my Spanish skills are pretty terrible and it was many years ago so I could be completely wrong.

That's like saying prime is great because it means fast shipping for everyone, as if Amazon will share access or some less wealthy entity can easily replicate. Maybe you haven't noticed this trend, but new internet technology comes pre-mono/duopolized thanks to the existence of big tech cos, or at least quickly gets absorbed by them. The trend is strongly away from end user control of tech, and that will continue not for the oft claimed reasons of safety or user experience, but specifically for social control.

> It also has its own bandwidth allotment (unlike Sidewalk, but bandwidth use there is probably very low).

Sidewalk is capped at 80 kbit/s transfer rate and 500 MB/month total transfers.

"The maximum bandwidth of a Sidewalk Bridge to the Sidewalk server is 80Kbps - total monthly data used by Sidewalk, per account, is capped at 500MB"

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