Comment by emporas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emporas | Hacker News Reader

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Indeed P2P technologies seem to be fading out of existence. But i expect a comeback, not a small comeback, or a medium one, an earth shattering comeback.

The key problem P2P technologies are going to solve, is monetizable self publishing. Self publishing is really the definition of P2P, and removing the middle-man is the name of the game. Bitcoin (not BTC) was invented exactly for the purpose of monetizing information, as the first sentence of the white paper defines it: "P2P cash for the internet."

The ideal scenario of exchanging money is the real world, in which we exchange money directly with one another with 0 (zero) middlemen.

The question which arises is, "What is the minimum number, of middle-men necessary for an internet transaction?" Could there be zero middle-men like in real life? The answer is no, zero middle-men are impossible, because someone has to keep the ledger data, and he requires a piece of the money transferred. With 1 (one) middle-man it is perfectly possible. The simplest such example are CBDC's issued by governments, but it could be a person, a P2P network or a company.

One use-case to illustrate the incentives is if Guyneth Palltrow visits the Oscars and she desires to publish a hundred photos to her fans. These photos are high-res of 10 MB each, so she wants to publish 1 GB of files. The most obvious place to share the photos is to post on Insta. She gets monetized by Instagram for all the traffic she attracts, but there are too many middle-men involved in her getting monetized. First of all Instagram is a middle-man, banks, and in case of international transfers governments as well. And each one of them gets a cut of the profits.

So Guyneth decides to publish her photos on torrents and getting monetized via Bitcoin. She effectively cuts out all middle-men, except one. But one problem remains: "How do we know who she is in the swarm of the peers, download the photos from her bandwidth and monetize her, instead monetizing random peers? We are her fans, amirite?"

That's where digital identities using ECSDA and social graphs kept immutable on a blockchain come into play. Hierarchies of identities for each person, merged into unions of pseudonymous accounts will enable information to flow where it needs to be. Money will flow where it needs to be as well.

I believe it's the opposite. Money is what killed P2P.

Why do people keep seeding a 20 years old torrent ? Why do people still run tor relays and escape nodes ? Why do people keep editing wikipedia ? It's absolutely not for the money, it's because they feel it is useful for humanity, and it indeed is. Money, or rather the greed that fuels willing to be financially rewarded, is the reason people stopped P2P and embraced individualism and centralized platforms. A central platform is comfy, it's cozy, it's easy, and it treats me right... at least in the beginning, but then it's too late. The value is in the money that can be extracted from the other. P2P is complicated, it's hard to understand, but everyone is at the same level, I can talk to people if something's wrong and anyone can improve the situation. The value is in the service provided to the community.

Cryptocurrencies are the peak of individualism, they allow the commodification of not just the individual, but of interactions, of knowledge, of thoughts, of absolutely everything. It's the market everywhere, and now you need to have your wallet handy to write a message because you're going to pay for it. It's the illusion of equality and "all you need is a little bit of willpower" that the bourgeoisie inherently believes in but has never been true under a capitalist system, and capitalism actively fights against equality. The exchange of financial value is how inequalities are created; we must abandon the exchange of value and focus on growing usage value instead, the only system that ensures everyone is valued and keeps a little bit of control and power.

P2P is digital socialism. Centralization is digital capitalism. Let's not make the mistake a second time, let's put cryptocurrencies where they belong: in the trash

When some people are seeding a torrent for 20 years, with no benefit or profit to extract, there is a good deal of idealism involved. That's admirable. I am not trying to downplay their effort.

But money gives an answer to some problems, and in the absence of it, an efficient answer is not possible. Money gives the answer to the following problem: "Of all the producers of commodities, who is going to extend production?"

Imagine that the whole of Earth, has 3 farmlands in total. In one farmland avocados are produced. In the second farmland olives are produced. Two very similar foods. The third farmland is just uncultivated field. So both farmers, of avocados and olives want to extend production and buy the uncultivated land.

Which one will buy the uncultivated land? Let's suppose that avocados are more expensive than olives, and all 3 farmlands are of equal hectares. The producer of avocados, has bigger profits, so he is able to outbid the producer of olives. As soon as the farmer of avocados extends his production to the newly acquired land, he floods the market with more avocados, effectively making the avocados cheaper.

The same exact formulation can be applied to torrent seeders. Which one of the seeders we want to buy new computers and better internet connection? The seeders of information who are the fastest and more reliable, we want to extend their production and sharing of information.

In the information economy not all information has the same price. Information is the product. The farmland here is computers and optical fibres.

So, money is an automation. Automation as in the "increase of production".

> But money gives an answer to some problems, and in the absence of it, an efficient answer is not possible.

Absolutely wrong. Money gives one answer, but it's not the most efficient: it's the one that profits the most to the one that already has the most. It doesn't benefit all the producers, and it doesn't benefit the consumers. It doesn't benefit society as a whole, because everyone is a competitor instead of working together.

Your example is interesting because you start with a situation that only exists in a capitalist society, as if that was a sensible default. You're basically taking the example of a duopoly, and show that keeping that duopoly with one actor taking even more place is... good ? When has an oligopoly ever been good ?

Why should the avocados producer make more avocados ? Do we need more avocados ? You say the land is uncultivated, but why is that a problem ? A third of earth with only avocados and another one with only olives is an absolute disaster in terms of ecology, biodiversity and health. It's the kind of situation where diseases are born. In that view, uncultivated land is something far more valuable than either farms, and yet, in your conclusion, the logical answer is to make even more avocados: that is a mistake on all accounts.

You say avocados are going to be cheaper, but that's completely oblivious to reality: a farmer who owns 2/3 of earth will not reduce their price. They will hold even more power, have even more influence over a capitalist governance and will do whatever they want. Again, when have the prices of an oligopoly ever decreased without intervention from a government ?

> The same exact formulation can be applied to torrent seeders. Which one of the seeders we want to buy new computers and better internet connection? The seeders of information who are the fastest and more reliable, we want to extend their production and sharing of information.

That's opposite to P2P. We don't want bigger torrent seeders, we want more torrent seeders. we don't want to centralize production of information, we want to distribute it.

Now, sure, money is needed to buy equipment, connection, and time. But we need money only because those things are not gratis. Which is why we must fight for more domains free of exchange of value: if more things do not need money, more people will be able to share information. Inequalities will vanish.

> So, money is an automation. Automation as in the "increase of production".

Anyone who's been paying attention to the climate change discussion in the past 50 years should understand that "Increase of production" is definitely the last thing we want.

Some of the problems you highlight are real problems for sure. I cannot expand any further, there are books on the subject, but i will add 2 more points.

>That's opposite to P2P. We don't want bigger torrent seeders, we want more torrent seeders.

We can have both kinds of seeders. More seeders and better ones as well. These properties are not mutually exclusive.

>Anyone who's been paying attention to the climate change discussion in the past 50 years should understand that "Increase of production" is definitely the last thing we want.

Believe it or not, production of food, housing, transportation will increase exponentially, and follow the familiar S curve trajectory. Human population will increase exponentially, i forecast one trillion people by the end of the century (2.100), one quadrillion by the end of 2.200 and so on.

The environment and earth will be thriving as well because new wealth will be created out of thin air. We will not need as many resources to create wealth, like we do today. Rare earth minerals, petroleum and more will not be necessary in the future to create wealth.

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