Grandmothers and everyone else already use edge routers/modems that can be centrally managed and updated. Edge servers can be locally or centrally managed. If centrally managed, they can be decoupled from the telco, i.e. competition among "edge server management services" instead of a land-bound monopoly. Techies can optionally enable local management.
More and more routers self update these days, which is absolutely the right choice for 95% of users.
That's something I don't get about the Samsung setup here actually. Just run the scan (from the video it takes about a second?) automatically without the user needing to. Then you don't have to make awful promo videos about users needing to do a scan.
No, but then the HN user set would be posting outraged medium.com blogs about how their TV is stealth-updating behind their back without their approval.
Is there any reason to suppose that such "centralised decentralisation" wouldn't end up with a small number of entities managing the centralised control planes thanks to economies of scale?
Since devices can be owned by the user, a range of business relationships are possible. Some data on the user-owned device can have a different legal status than data owned by a central provider. E2E encryption and separation of ownership can exist alongside capital-fueled consolidation of data.
It's not necessary for edge devices to "win" against centralization, only that they exist and are sustainably funded.
Microsoft, HP and Dell/VMware have device-as-service offerings. There can be many permutations of control planes between local and central, or even regional.
>Grandmothers and everyone else already use edge routers/modems that can be centrally managed and updated.
The cable modems and DVRs run by cable companies are simpler devices that criminals will not target with malware to run cryptocurrency mining, or install fake CA certificates to MITM grandmothers' web browser and online bank transactions. These devices are restricted and constrained.
The type of hardware that decentralized proponents think of would have enough power and sophistication to displace Facebook and Youtube with p2p intelligence. It would be a more complicated server appliance (maybe a Linux base image) that has sophisticated software (Sandstorm.io, distributed apps on Blockstack, etc). The appliance would be more complex than the Samsung TVs of this thread that require owners to run virus scans. This type of advanced appliance is by design -- unrestricted and unconstrained -- to enable itself to evolve with new software capabilities.
>If centrally managed, they can be decoupled from the telco, i.e. competition among "edge server management services" instead of a land-bound monopoly.
Your scenario has 2 extra levels of "economic friction" and those extra costs act as barriers to decentralization:
(1) The hardware for the server appliance is a cost most normal non-techies would not want to pay for.
(2) The ongoing support payments is another cost that normal people would not want to pay for. (ie. sibling's comment of paying $20/month or $240/year is unrealistic.)
Also, the idea of non-techie consumers comparing "edge server management services" is itself a cognitive barrier to decentralization. Today, if we think of grandmothers' laptops as "hardware to be managed by somebody else" -- such as Geek Squad, we see that many don't have the technical knowledge to avoid being scammed.[0] To put the vision of "decentralization hardware" in perspective, it's basically asking millions of non-techies who are susceptible to Geek Squad scams -- to expose their laptop configuration and root access to the world.
>Techies can optionally enable local management.
And this configuration option to enable flexibility is yet another attack vector to trick non-techies into making their devices more vulnerable.
>It's not necessary for edge devices to "win" against centralization, only that they exist and are sustainably funded.
It's true they don't have to "win" but I was talking about the decentralized proponents' "dream scenario" of decentralized being good enough to make centralized services like Facebook/Youtube irrelevant. This can't happen if only a niche group of enthusiastic homeowners run server appliances.
