I will be making some comments as I am reading the Synereo white paper, and the coherent, holistic analysis will hopefully follow later after I am done reading the entire white paper (note Elokane already admitted to me that the white paper is missing some critical algorithms such as the ability to filter out low/zero information/entropy actions such as when users Like all their friends' timeline posts irrespective of value of the content that was shared).
End users can run the service on their own computation devices, gaining
full control over their data. Thus, Synereo is directly aligned with the shifting
trends of the web from a centralized model, to a more open, user-centric, dis-
tributed architecture. As part of an e ort to make the Synereo technology easily
accessible to large audiences, we provide an architecture for deploying central-
ized Synereo web-based gateway services, such that technically-able users - or
partner services - can host Synereo nodes as a service to their peers.
Unfortunately I explained a dilemma:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1340057.msg13670558#msg13670558If the users store their files on their own computer, then there is no way to enforce legal orders, thus the Synereo protocol will be banned by (centralized gateway) hosts. And if Synereo doesn't allow users to host content from their computers, then user's can't resist government regulation of their activities. Besides serving files from user computers over ISPs that have asymmetrically low upload (relative to download) bandwidth is a Tragedy of the Commons as some ISPs effectively pay for other ISPs' lower upload allowances (which is why Bittorrent is throttled/banned by many ISPs, which thus helps drive the Net Neutrality politics that will enslave us in internet taxation ... which btw I pointed out to Bittorrent in 2008, I offered a solution, and they apparently ignored me...click link above to read more).
So the point is that hosting illegal content is a non-starter. And thus hosting (at least high-bandwidth or copyrightable) content on user computers is a non-starter.
If we are going to find utility in Synereo, it has to come from gains in user's sense of value from the attention model, which is what I will be analyzing.
It is not clear if there is any advantage to it being decentralized (but I do hope to find one that matters to users). Mostly the masses don't care about decentralization ideology. They care about the value they get out of the social experience (and not just monetized value). However, we are already seeing where the values of certains users (e.g. musicians) are in conflict with the values of certain music promotion sites such as SoundCloud and Spotify. I have also
been analyzing these music promotions sites. There are many. And that might be the more important trust that is being violated, not the reporting to the government which I think is not an actionable cause for most people:
Faced with these numbers, many people are asking themselves, Does it make
sense that the value we create simply by sharing our lives online is retained by
the people who happened to be the rst to provide the infrastructure allowing
us to do so? That these social platforms stated aim is to increase the revenue
they can extricate from us? From our basic need to communicate and share
ourselves with others?
Indeed, this is how current social networking service providers see their users:
as unpaid laborers. As free content creators whose behaviors can be recorded
and measured, the data generated auctioned o to corporations. And for many,
this may still be ne. The services given are now seen as basic necessities in
our digital age, and so perhaps the balance struck between user and service
provider is a fair one. However, there are other issues tipping the scale against
the incumbents: theres been a breach of trust. The information going into user
feeds is being manipulated, and the information going out - including details
of our activity outside of Facebook - is being handed over to governmental
authorities; privacy settings be damned.
I didn't know this:
Ello, a recent attempt to create an environment
where users arent monetized through ads, exploded in popularity within a few
months of its launch, registering 1 million users and keeping 3 million more on
its waiting list as it went on to scale its centralized technology. [17]
Please refer to prior discussion here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/42rvm3/truth_about_ethereum_is_being_banned_at/Note I am ideologically in support of a decentralized concept. But economics rules ideology. So let's see where the chips fall in terms of analysis. As the preface to the white paper says, a manifesto is not sufficient. One must also have an economic plan.