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0 pointsoblio7y ago0 comments

I’m going to be a bit ironic here and say that email is an example of a federated system.

I’m being ironic cause we did end up with a centralized system for email. Not a single center, but a few: Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. Because of abuse (spam, primarily) and because of ease of use.

Having an easy to use and safe federated system is discovering-the-theory-of-relativity hard, in my opinion.

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zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC7y ago

On the other hand, even a few "centers" are way better than just one, in that that creates competetive pressure.

But also, those three are by far not the only ones, there are quite a few more significant email providers across the globe.

And also, there are tons of participants who use none of those services. Apart from some individuals running their own servers, lots and lots of companies run their own email infrastructure.

> Having an easy to use and safe federated system is discovering-the-theory-of-relativity hard, in my opinion.

The important thing is that it's way easier than a safe centralized system.

8bitsrule7y ago

I wonder ... do you suppose That's what the Krell told themselves? ( Reference film 'Forbidden Planet' https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223/ ... and Murphy's Law.

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