147 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
147 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
title: The importance of decentralisation
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---
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pub_date: 2019-11-14
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---
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author: ungleich
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---
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twitter_handle: ungleich
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---
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abstract:
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Or: why the Internet still functions
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---
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body:
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Did you ever wonder, why the Internet is as robust as it is?
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Then this article is for you.
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## The Internet Architecture
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The Internet basically consists of a lose collaboration of network
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service operators. Each operator, whether an individual or a large
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scale enterprise, can announce their own networks and run services in
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their own networks.
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The dependency on other providers is relatively low, the only thing
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you need to operate in the Internet is one or more upstream
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providers. If you happen to have many of them, we call this
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**peering** and it allows you to get good deals for data exchange.
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## Decentralisation is an enabler
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Because each operator can decide what to run in their network, whether
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it's providing access to websites, providing a mail infrastructure,
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providing a webshop or other services. What you do, what you sell is
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up to you.
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So far so good, isn't it?
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## The threat of centralisation
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In the real world, we see that some services have become strictly
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centralised. Services like ebay, amazon, google or facebook are very
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convenient, because they allow access to a lot of resources, but are
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also very dangerous at the same time.
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### Problem one: Seller dependency
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Imagine you are selling pink socks. Because pink socks are
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the coolest and they make people feel more warm in winter.
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Imagine further you exclusively sell your products solely through
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one of these platforms. Then the provider bans you from their website,
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because pink is considered to be incorrect, socks always have to be
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black. This will ruin your business model completely, because you
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don't have an alternative.
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While the example of pink socks is fictional, there are
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[many such real world cases](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bannled+from+selling+on+amazon).
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### Problem two: Buyer dependency
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On the other hand as a consumer, if you usually go to one site. Now
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if you are banned from that site, you cannot approach the seller, even
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if the seller wanted to sell to you.
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### Problem three: Censorship
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A generic problem with centralised platforms is censorship. This is a
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very important one, as it applies to providers in
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[a lot
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nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country).
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We have seen censorship on a variety of platforms including a variety
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of reasons including political motivated censorship. Centralised
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platforms are especially prone for censorship with huge effects.
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### Problem four: Lack of choices
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Once a centralised platform has been established, the lack of choice
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forces sellers, buyers and consumers into a strong dependency (related
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to this is [strong vendor
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lock-ins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in). If the
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platform raises prices or decides to reduce privacy features, users
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don't have a choice, but to accept, if there are no alternatives.
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## Some many problems - what is the solution?
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Like we say in Switzerland, we like to **buy locally**, supporting
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small shops and small companies. But how do you realistically do this in
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the Internet? We see one easy to use way that is not on everyone's
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radar: **switching to IPv6**. Let us show you how to establish your
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own presence in 3 small steps.
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### 1. Acknowledge that you are a network operator
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First of all, anyone can be a network operator. This is how the
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Internet was built and it is still true. You can start by
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[getting your own IPv6
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space](https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/02/05/how-to-get-ipv6/).
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This is really easy and in case you are using the
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[IPv6VPN.ch](https://IPv6VPN.ch) only requires installing
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[wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/) and a configuration.
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### 2. Setup your own presence
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When you have your own IPv6 range, you can run anything in it. From a
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website, to mail servers, ... anything any other operator can do.
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If you don't know how to do that, you can ask for help on the
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[IPv6.Chat](https://IPv6.chat), where you find many people who are
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using IPv6 on a daily basis.
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You can even setup your [own social
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network](https://mastodon.social/about) on your infrastructure!
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### 3. Talk about it
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Many people are not aware that with IPv6 the game really changes and
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that everyone is back in the game. So when you start your journey, we
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ask you to talk about it and enable other people.
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### 4. (optional) Get an IPv4 Proxy
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If you want to be reachable from the IPv4 world, you can also use an
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IPv4-to-IPv6 proxy, which you find the the [IPv6
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Shop](https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/en-us/cms/ipv6-shop/).
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## Summary and Outlook
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Centralisation is a danger to everyone. It concentrates decision power
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and effectively can censor opinions and in the worst case even ruin
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businesses. With IPv6 you can back in control. Even better, you can
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be part of driving decentralisation.
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Soon upcoming is the [Black IPv6
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Friday](https://swiss-crowdfunder.com/campaigns/black-ipv6-friday?locale=en),
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where you can get direct IPv6 experience. Or you can exchange your
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ideas for decentralisation on the [IPv6.Chat](https://IPv6.chat).
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## Updates
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As pointed out by [nicey](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nicey)
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on [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21535181) there
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is the
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[awesome-selfhosted](https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/)
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git repo on github with a lot of explanations on how to self
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host. Really worth checking it out!
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