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Comment by weare138 | Hacker News Reader

>Is there actually a third option? I'm wondering of the author simply misunderstands Ethereum.

The issue is Urbit bills itself as 'decentralized' but isn't. If you buy Ethereum and disconnect from the Ethereum network your Ethereum doesn't go away but with Urbit you're just running your own server. Urbit should just call it what it is, a software stack. It's not 'decentralized' or an 'OS'. It's a software stack that requires a conventional OS and server.

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"Just running your own server" is the proper meaning of "decentralized" [0].

Urbit has a literal operating system named Arvo built on top of a virtual machine named Nock. The terms are used technically; it's not trying to compete with Windows.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_computing

That article goes straight into peer-to-peer and file sharing so it is hardly surprising that most people expect a decentralized platform to exist primarily to eliminate SPOFs, i.e. provide redundant access to data of down peers.

I’m curious as to your definition of decentralized here. It seems you’re using the term to mean “global commons”, when I generally would use the term to mean something more akin to “permissionless” or “exhibiting a resistance to control via a singular entity or small group of entities”. Urbit is certainly decentralized by either of the two latter definitions, though a particular Urbit server surely wouldn’t constitute a global commons, which seems closest to your definition.

there is peer-to-peer decentralisation and federated decentralisation.

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