Incredible to think about that we got it right the first time (with email) and still had to spend the last 20 years complaining about centralized social networks.
Incredible to think about that we got it right the first time (with email) and still had to spend the last 20 years complaining about centralized social networks.
Lets agree to disagree on the “natural” centralisation aspect, which is IMHO nonsense. And very recently the US empire was beaten by some tribes in Afghanistan, so I think your argument needs some further thinking 😏
The reason it gets so much more expensive after a few thousand users is complexity. Up to that point a single server can be used and the necessary sysadmin skills are not very high. Basically anyone with a few weeks of training can rent a server and run such an instance.
After a few thousand users it gets steeply more complex, when you need to think about running a database cluster and load-balance the frontends etc. Not very many people have the necessary skillset for that, and even less are volunteering to do this. So you end up being forced to hire someone expensive with a high in demand skill. Basically your operation suddenly jumps from an easy to fund with donations volunteer effort, to a must commercialize or otherwise fund venture that is highly unsustainable in the short term.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to argue centralization is a naturally occurring phenomenon. It’s everywhere. The U.S. left Afghanistan and was replaced by a different centralized entity. One could argue how decentralized those “tribes” were, but regardless, after the U.S. departure they recreated a similar structure.
Complexity comes hand in hand with size. The OP is a chart of the different email providers. Can an individual run their own email server? Yes. And doesn’t it get more difficult after a certain number of users and require hiring specialists? Yes. But still, such large services exist, and a majority of users turn to them.
If the fediverse lives there will always be small servers, but we can expect to see really big ones. If we don’t want them to be corporate recreations of gmail and yahoo and hotmail I’d argue we should figure out a platform co-op/worker co-op model, including the necessary funding and specialists.