Decentralization – a deep cause of causes you care about deeply

Decentralized and distributed networks are presented as a deep cause underlying democracy, human rights and the environment, and the author argues that growing centralization of the web is eroding them. The article says that the Internet was designed as a distributed network, and that the web has no central controlling node, so no single point of failure or kill switch. It states that the majority of attention is now commanded by six companies, most of whose apps sit above the web, and that centralization of this kind exposes users to surveillance and algorithmic nudging. Tim Berners-Lee is quoted saying the problem is social rather than technological, and the article calls for redecentralization.