>The decentralized web is everyone hosting their own webserver from home. It's easy, everyone has a fast enough connection,
I don't think it's that "easy" regardless of whether you're talking about cable-modem/router port-forwarding, or new IPv6 addresses, or even turnkey web host appliances.
In any case, I'll copy&paste one of my previous comments on NAT or ease-of-use not being the real barrier people think it is:
>Even if this thread's article's vision of IPv6 improving direct connectivity were to happen, I still claim the overwhelming majority of programmers would continue to choose something like Github rather than host their repositories on personal home servers. Personally, I wouldn't want my repo to be traced back to my home's ip address. I don't want China DDOS'ing my home ISP connection if they don't like my iPhone app that monitors Hong Kong. If I was a female, I wouldn't want my home git repo to give away my ip address and invite digital stalkers. I'd use Github just for the ability to shield my home's IPv6 address for privacy and safety.
>If the programmers -- which we can think of as technical thought leaders -- aren't leading by example (with git) for decentralization, why would we realistically expect other mainstream consumers to adopt decentralized setups? Yes, there will always be decentralized communities but it will always remain niche.
The idea that your IP address should be kept secret and that you should only interact with the rest of the internet through corporate third parties for protection is both obscene and absurd.
In 20+ years of home self-hosting I've never been DoS'd except on my tor hidden service (also served from home) and because it was tor all I had to do was change 1 number in my config file to limit it. Super easy.
>The idea that your IP address should be kept secret and that you should only interact with the rest of the internet through corporate third parties for protection is both obscene and absurd.
If I want to publish a web page with some anonymity and I'd prefer that readers not know whether it's in Kansas vs New York, then my home ip address is one less piece of information readers don't need to know about. It's totally reasonable for my particular preferences. Of course, the ip privacy is not absolute but relative -- and that can be good enough. Github/Youtube/HN will know my home ip address but everybody else interacting with those sites don't need to.
I'm not going to give up some privacy of my ip address just to fulfill your ideals of "decentralization". That's not a good enough reason. And looking at your webpsite, your self-report of 20-years of no DDOS attacks is irrelevant to what I might want to publish. Maybe I want to write essays on more controversial topics than what you chose to write about.
I find it interesting that you posted a previous comment about not wanting "trackers":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22835625 : >I have never carried a cell phone (smart of otherwise) in my life. I leave my dumb phone at home or take the battery out. I hope that these tracking bracelets which others voluntarily carry will not be forced and required in the future.
Knowing the approximate state or county your ISP is in is not tracking. It's location.
Cell phones with base station multilateration track the cell phone's location 24/7/365 and in the USA that data is accumulated for 2-5 years. Over that time they get to know you and your averaged patterns of movement (<100m) very, very well.
Your IP is how you interact with the internet. Trying to 'hide' it or whatever because you worry about someone knowing your ISP's general location is shooting yourself in the leg. And after you'll start relying on third party services to do what you can't do anymore because of gimping and give away even more private information.
That said, I'm not against using anonymity networks. I host many tor onion services from the very desktop home computer I'm typing to you on. I also support i2p with bandwidth and bitcoin as a full node.
I don't think it's that "easy" regardless of whether you're talking about cable-modem/router port-forwarding, or new IPv6 addresses, or even turnkey web host appliances.
In any case, I'll copy&paste one of my previous comments on NAT or ease-of-use not being the real barrier people think it is:
>Even if this thread's article's vision of IPv6 improving direct connectivity were to happen, I still claim the overwhelming majority of programmers would continue to choose something like Github rather than host their repositories on personal home servers. Personally, I wouldn't want my repo to be traced back to my home's ip address. I don't want China DDOS'ing my home ISP connection if they don't like my iPhone app that monitors Hong Kong. If I was a female, I wouldn't want my home git repo to give away my ip address and invite digital stalkers. I'd use Github just for the ability to shield my home's IPv6 address for privacy and safety.
>If the programmers -- which we can think of as technical thought leaders -- aren't leading by example (with git) for decentralization, why would we realistically expect other mainstream consumers to adopt decentralized setups? Yes, there will always be decentralized communities but it will always remain niche.