The Debate Over DWeb vs. Web3 & The Decentralized Elephant in the Room

Full text here:

I’m an avid follower of Mai’s work in Compost and often look to Hypha.Coop as a model of best practices. This analysis of terms and the specific political economies or tendencies they signify may be interesting to Resonate Members seeking to navigate current environments.

By Mai Ishikawa Sutton May 17, 2022

Mai is the Co-founder and Lead Editor of COMPOST Magazine, a core organizer with DWeb Camp and works with Hypha.coop on several projects.

Selected excerpts:
(To tease you into reading the whole thing.)

Reflecting on the term Web3, Evgeny Morozov points out that while its proponents evoke it as a revolutionary new phase of the web, they rarely (if ever) address fundamental issues of power that made the old web toxic. He writes that many Web3 advocates are adversarial towards “Web 2.0” projects for their monopolistic control over user data. Yet despite Web3 products’ core offering of enabling end-users to own their digital assets, most don’t engage with the underlying political economy that fundamentally shapes the priorities and incentives of these tools. For one, Evgeny notes that many of the same VC investors who are salivating over the profitability of Web3 ventures are the same characters who were behind funding and shaping the most disastrous, centralized “Web 2.0” companies.

Taking a less critical stance, CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber gives an elegant overview of the Web’s phases of history – describing Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web3 as “the hosted web, the posted web, and the signed web,” respectively. This breakdown is helpful to contextualize the current wave of cryptographically timestamped global ledgers, aka blockchains, within a technological history of the Web. Jay’s definition of Web3 is notably more expansive than what you normally hear, harkening back to its original definition of a semantic Web. She therefore includes not just blockchains, but any protocol that is “self-certifying”, including older protocols like Git, PGP, BitTorrent, as well as newer ones, such as IPFS, Hypercore, and Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB).

[… ]

I should disclose that I have been a core member of the Internet Archive’s DWeb Projects team for the last three years. As part of this work, through a collaborative process with several dozen stakeholders, I co-stewarded the process to define the five overarching principles: Technology for Human Agency, Distributed Benefits, Mutual Respect, Humanity, and Ecological Awareness. Our aim was to put a stake in the ground and affirm the values of those building alternative network infrastructure. Instead of merely being not centralized, we wanted to define what it was that we stood for.

Though some have pointed out that it sounds too much like dweeb, I find “DWeb” to be an incredibly useful umbrella to organize under. It seems to attract people who are not only interested in building a new Web (and many Webs) for the sake of profit, but also for the sake of addressing concrete challenges, especially those faced by the most marginalized communities. And while people do cite the ways the Web used to be more decentralized, the term is temporally ambiguous. It doesn’t have the baggage of seeming like a new phase, nor is it under threat of having an expiration date. This creates room for the movement to evolve as we gain more allies and build a network of solidarity. By calling it a DWeb, it reminds us to continue wrestling with the question of what it is we’re decentralizing.

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Great article!

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I agree. I think it offers a good ground for educating Members about social considerations in various emerging platform designs.

The author also links to this article by Alice Yuan Zhang that I found helpful:

https://aliceyuanzhang.com/decentralization

And especially this list of references and resources:

See below for a library of expansive possibilities, from DWeb to Web0 to the Organic Internet to Decolonial Tech!

A Rant about “Technology” by Ursula K Le Guin

Feminist Server Manifesto from the TransH@ckFeminists in Calafou, Spain

Logic Mag: From the Bottom to the Top by Mai Ishikawa Sutton

The Organic Internet: Building Communications Networks from the Grassroots by Panayotis Antoniadis

Deem Journal: Other Networks: Infrastructure and Equity on the Decentralized Web by Taeyoon Choi

Teaching Community Technology by Mother Cyborg

The budding movement of Web0 and html.energy by Laurel Schwulst and friends

Compost Mag: Until the Cows Come Home: Aamne Saamne Pi by Shafali Jain

Prototypes as Agents of Transition: The Case of DIY Wireless Technology for Advancing Community Digital Sovereignty by Hagit Keysar, Elizabeth Calderón Lüning, Andreas Unteidig

Consensus Building: The Clash Between Governance and Everyday Life, a discussion between Nikiwe Solomon and Adrian Van Wyk

Governable Stacks against Digital Colonialism by Nathan Schneider

Community Tech NY’s Journey Map

The Oracle for Transfeminist Technologies by Coding Rights and Design Justice Network

Digital Witchcraft by Danae Tapia

Mapping Access by Critical Design Lab

Max Fowler’s Guide to Serving a Website from a Raspberry Pi and other resources

Shared Body, a cyberwitch coven by Cy X

Blockchain Chicken Farm by Xiaowei Wang

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

virtual care lab’s Terms that Serve Us

Design Justice Principles

DWeb Principles

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I’ve met Mai and hung out with her. Just an amazing person. She’s also organizing Dweb Camp, which I’m going to attend. Hope I can see some Resonate folks there…

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@brndnkng will be there fingers crossed!

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Thanks partly to your prodding @lindner and partly to incredible persynal support from @brndnkng I was able to attend DWeb!

It was a terrific experience of community and a beautiful opportunity to meet and build with people who are determined to employ emerging technical capacities to overcome historical legacies of colonization and extraction.

A highlight was brandon’s convening of a workshop called Thinking Outside the Boss (with a cameo appearance from @zetto.plus). We collected many contacts and advanced many conversations with old and new friends. I should also say my peak experience was attending a late-night jam in the woods featuring brandon (on synth) and his workshop partner Tony Lai (violin). Actual music!

I am slowly working through my impressions of the 5 days. There is so much to draw from that promises to be of value for Resonate. I look forward to sharing here to the best of my ability and in general encourage folks to critically engage the work and associations of the Internet Archive, COMPOST, hypha.coop and janastu (to callout just a few of the orgs and people present.)

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Related: News from new friends in rural india: Visits to Iruway, COWKit, FTP and more from this April | Janastu - Servelots Blog

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I was listening to this podcast today whic I’m just going to dump here on the topic of mesh networks:

Also I’ve really liked this idea homebrewserver.club

Edit: related to the last link, I like Low Tech Magazine who have a website that’s only online if their battery is charged.

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