It's likely the web itself has been shaped by the technology underpinning it. The article would seem to suggest something similar. Look at email. Now we all connect to the central email servers at Google and they handle most of everything else. Perhaps on the IPv6 internet, you would be able to buy a USB stick that handles all your emails for you. No more centralised mail, you just have a small server in your house that does it for you. The same of social media, etc. It would be feasible to offer an entire plug-and-play P2P internet in the form-factor and cost of a small HDD.
Would people want to own such a server? I don't know, but as it stands currently, only the centralised players in the internet sphere can afford to serve content. Perhaps our relationship to these companies would be different if there was no barrier to entry for competition. Perhaps our entire conception of the internet would be different without that fundamental limitation. Or perhaps nothing would change. The central model has its advantages, but I'd also like to be able to own my own website.
> Perhaps on the IPv6 internet, you would be able to buy a USB stick that handles all your emails for you.
You are too optimistic. Poeple can't be bothered to migrate off the google to some alternative provider (also free) and you expect them to buy a "usb stick" for local (mail) server? And then have to keep their machines up all the time and also connected constantly? (not everyone lives in the USA and have FTTH)...
I already mentioned that Opera tried something like "personal pod" 15-20 years ago and it flopped...
> No more centralised mail, you just have a small server in your house that does it for you. The same of social media, etc.
"social media" case seems interesting but again - we had mastodon for distributed social media and it's adoption is lukewarm... and now we have bluesky, which is also distributed and anyone host it and whatnot and it's userbase skyrocketed... and everyone use single instance.
All in all - people don't care about it, they want convenience and nothing else...
> And then have to keep their machines up all the time and also connected constantly?
The idea would be that you plug the stick into a USB port, then it just draws power from the wall and serves files over WiFi. Similar to the Amazon Fire TV stick, it would be a full computer in a small form-factor.
> and everyone use single instance
I wonder if this has anything to do with how difficult it would be to set up your own instance? We already have distributed social media, it's called websites. I think having your own website is pretty appealing to a lot of people. BlueSky is really just a worse version of HTTP with page indexers, which only needs to be that way because of NAT.
> All in all - people don't care about it, they want convenience and nothing else...
I know that people will not bother to migrate off their current software, but the product has its own pros and cons. Perhaps if they were presented with both options when they first obtained an email address, they would have made different choices.
And actually, I think people do care quite a lot. Even something as simple as sending a file to someone is massively complicated by NAT. People don't like the fact that they need to trust their digital lives to a handful of massive American companies. That people lack knowledge of the alternatives is not a sign that there are no better alternatives. See Ford on cars, Jobs on phones, etc.
Would people want to own such a server? I don't know, but as it stands currently, only the centralised players in the internet sphere can afford to serve content. Perhaps our relationship to these companies would be different if there was no barrier to entry for competition. Perhaps our entire conception of the internet would be different without that fundamental limitation. Or perhaps nothing would change. The central model has its advantages, but I'd also like to be able to own my own website.