Decentr is building a Web browser that functions as a “user layer” for blockchain that is readily deployed across a range of blockchain/DLT solutions, including Tomochain, Holochain, etc.
As a result, Decentr underpins a “true” data economy as part of an IoV that forms the socioeconomic basis for Web 3.0/4.0.
We recently released a couple of screenshots (see below) to give everyone a sneak peek at what this user layer looks and intuitively “feels” like.
The cool thing about our user layer is that it allows users to customise their browsing experience by choosing what format they prefer to engage with, including layouts such as: “Social”, “News” , “Magazine”, “Images”, “Videos” etc.
The TL-DR: How it Works
Many of you have noted the “d” button on these screenshots, as well as the posting assignation “…dposted” next to a user’s posting name.
This is a key user-facing communications feature that allows for information from users to become increasingly more refined and structured the more they post and engage, hence improving their data quality and corresponding PDV.
The “d” (see below) refers to a “dPost”, and functions in some ways like a repost, except that the dposted information reaches a more highly targeted set of users, due to the 100% decentralised flow of information on our system (think of a dPost as a repost with super powers!).
This decentralised dataflow is determined by a cumulative set of opt-in features that determines what information a user receives, where and how, and this removes the need (or possibility) of third party interference or data manipulation at the user layer level.
This is important, as without a genuinely decentralised communications/social media platform the notion of an internet based on 100% decentralised data storage and exchange can never become a reality.
Decentr is designed to function as this platform by creating a “user layer” for a “true” DLT/blockchain Web 3.0/.4.0 solution in the same way Windows and Web browsers created a “user layer” for HTML internet to create the current web. In this way, Decentr allows 100% disintermediated communications between dApps across our Web 3.0/4.0 solution, as well as the current internet.
The Concept Behind the User Layer
Understanding the relatively simple concept behind our radically-new user-layer tech will give a better idea of how and why our data exchange is consistent with, and is a vital adjunct to, existing DLT/blockchain solutions — DLT/blockchain solutions really only being set up for decentralised data storage and not decentralised dataflow (which is where Decentr steps in).
Our “user layer” is essentially a new, 100% secure, anonymous and decentralised way to communicate online and has resolved many of the issues plaguing current social media, news and other related platforms. To understand at a fundamental level where social media, news and other platforms have gone so badly wrong, we first need to redefine “communications” from a contemporaneous and a historical perspective.
Addressing the Critical Failings of Current Communications/Social Media Platforms
All current social/news media/communications platforms have nothing to do with communications per se (and don’t pretend to), but are merely another form of transmission; in this respect, they are little different to real world alternatives, once you strip away the bells and whistles. If we are being realistic, on a fundamental level there is little more we can do with online communications than we can do with a fax, a phone, a decent Rolodex and an ad in a corner store window; sure, online is more efficient and convenient, but the fundamental systems remain pretty much as they have always been.
And the larger tech incumbents want to keep it that way: transmissions (which are centralised by their very nature, as opposed to “communications”, which by definition must be 100% decentralised) are susceptible to manipulation as regards what information any given user or user group is allowed to engage with. This is simply wholesale censorship that we all currently accept in the absence of an alternative. Our primary assumption for the Decentr platform, therefore, is that any “communications” system, if it is to be deemed as such, must be democratic by definition and design and delivered via the process of 100% disintermediation.
Figure 1 (below) shows the model of communication patterns common to all existing communications/social media sites (which, as can be seen, are decidedly limited and therefore undemocratic by design and deployment).
We will briefly describe the (limited) extent of the network effects in Figure 1 (above):
Where A shares a post, A’s followers, B and C, can read and interact with this post (to a limited/centrally controlled extent). Where D posts something, D’s follower’s, E and F, can read and interact with this post (to a limited/centrally controlled extent). And…that is about the limit of “communication” on current communications/social media platforms: this is literally where the “network effects” end (before they even start) on such sites.
This of course explains why there are billion dollar industries attempting to buy/hack or otherwise increase “reach” across communications platforms and why even this artificially boosted “reach” is subject to the echo-chamber effects put in place by the incumbent tech giants to kill organic reach in favour of their pay-to-play communications models.
Exhausting, we know. If you are tired of being socioeconomically penalised for the faulty business models shared by the big tech giants, read on… Decentr provides an alternative.
What About Current Decentralised Solutions?
Before moving on, it is first necessary to reiterate our response to any assertion that a “decentralised” communications/social media platform already exists — Diaspora, Obsidian, Indorse, et al being commonly cited examples. These platforms miss the point as does anyone proposing them as “decentralised” alternatives. These platforms exist as “decentralised social media” in name only: the demonstrable lack of network effects exhibited by such platforms (which follow the same model as Figure 1) is actually aggressively worse than platforms on the current net — by design.
These so-called “decentralised” social media sites, “grafted” as they are onto Blockchain, actually reduce network effects in direct correlation with increased security. This is the opposite of an effective communications platform and therefore the antithesis of what we (or any democratically aligned user) aim to achieve.
In our technical whitepaper, we describe this as the “data sharing/storage paradox”:
The fundamental problem is that security of current data storage solutions is directly compromised by current data sharing methods (and vice versa). In other words, the more secure the data storage solution on current centralised platforms the harder it becomes to integrate data with other applications, whereas the more efficient the data sharing method the harder it is to secure the data being shared as well as being harder to secure the ID and other sensitive details of the sharer.
How to Build a “True” Decentralised Communications/Social Media Platform
The key is to build a decentralised communications/social media platform that can function as a “user layer” for blockchain; one that is unalterably democratic and hence unalterably transparent, whilst ensuring network effects increase (in line with the data sharing/storage paradox) in direct correlation with increased security. Figure 2 and Figure 3 (see below) reveal the process of network effects common to the “user layer” communications/social media feature of the platform we have built.
Look closely, and you will notice the networks created actually function at the social level on the principles of the Athenian Assembly, for exampke; the Assembly being the most central and most definitive institution of Athenian Democracy.
It is critical to note that this “Athenian democracy” notion is no mere analogy. The Assembly, as developed by Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508/7 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) is distinguished by a set of governing principles that allow everyone in the community (admittedly males only in the time of Athens; we are not of course constrained by Athenian gender mores) the right to hear and be heard by any and all other members of said community — that is providing they choose to hear and be heard.
These principles, of course, underpin our modern idea of democracy (the issue being they are more honoured in the breached than in the observed in the ostensibly democratic republics most of us live in).
Our observation that the principles of the Athenian Assembly are at the social level identical to DLT/blockchain principles is the key conceptual and developmental insight that made our fundamental tech possible (as Figure 2 and Figure 3 below show).
We will describe the (unlimited) extent of the network effects in Figure 2 and Figure 3 (above):
“True” democratic communication (as applied to the above models using a “(p)Post-(r)Response” equation) has as its core components the following important dynamical and topological qualities:
1. Any individual (‘A’ in Figure 2 example) must be allowed to make his or her ‘point’ in a public forum, so that:
1.1 All others in that community (D, E, F) who choose to hear him or her have the right and means to do so, while;
1.2 All the individual’s (A) followers (B, C) who choose to hear him or her have the right and means to do so. Consequently;
2. Any and all those who hear the point made by the individual (A) must be allowed to respond to this point (see Figure 3) in such a way that:
2.1 All the respondent’s (in this case, ‘D’) users (E, F) who choose to listen to the respondent can hear the respondent’s response (Dr1), and critically also;
2.2 The individual (A) and all the individual’s followers (B, C) who choose to listen to the individual’s (A) respondents can hear the respondent’s (in this case, ‘D’) response. This is critical, as it means;
3. All points made in the public forum(s) require public accountability. How so? Because it is impossible for anyone — even the user who made the initial (or subsequent) points — to control, alter or block who sees the responses, good or bad, made to his or her point, post, article, comment or essay piece. Control of what a user sees is purely up to each individual user, and nothing can be manipulated, changed or censored as all information committed to the public forum is held on multiple separate computers/servers in line with DLT/blockchain protocol. This is good for humans (and AI, of which more in upcoming articles) because;
4. The ongoing dissemination of ideas evolves in such a way that all permutations of the various conversations are both in a linear timeline that can be easily followed while also being uniquely dynamical in terms of evolving networks of new additions and ongoing modification to the original and subsequent ideas.
In practice, this system means that any individual or organisation is 100% accountable. If, for example, on our platform a user ‘Follows’ the Coca Cola company, then this user can opt to hear every conversation about the company that the company’s followers are having, good, bad, indifferent or otherwise shaded by the ongoing debate, and neither the company nor any centralised third-party can filter or censor these conversations or content (the company can only follow the conversations and respond, same as their followers). It is up to individual followers to pick and choose which followers they do or do not wish to listen to: this grants 100%, decentralised (and hence unalterably democratic) user-controlled information creation and dissemination.
As a result, as noted in Figure 3 (above), it is no surprise that the evolving communications networks formed from this communications platform describe a familiar, 100% decentralised and distributed pattern identical to blockchain applications.
The actual functions on our user interface that fulfil these goals are the “dPost” feature, which can be viewed as the “d” button, while the “dposted” assignation to a post allows users to follow the timeline of this post from its inception to current incarnation:
Decentr’s Decentralised Communications/Social Media User features
The development of a democratic, distributed and decentralised communications/social media platform to function as a publicly accessible “user layer” for DLT/blockchain is already the “Holy Grail” of communications/social media. For all online users, our platform is critical foundational technology as regards freedom of online communications and digital identity protection as part of a Web 3.0/4.0 solution because, by using our platform:
- Users can subscribe to quickly and easily find new, like-minded people to genuinely engage with — minus the filter bubbling, data walling and other manipulative third-party practises that have destroyed Web 2.0 communications and social media. Our platform achieves this by:
- Totally rethinking and rebuilding online communications to create a ‘true’ decentralised communications platform that allows users to interact using the principles of democracy as espoused by the Athenian Assembly. Having rebuilt social media and communications using these principles means that;
- All users on our platform are able to safely and autonomously meet and engage via the public and private pages, freely read other users’ posts, and reply to them in a way that ensures:
- The respondent and the respondent’s followers (who have opted in to receive third party content) are automatically included in the conversation, and;
- – Critically — the poster and the poster’s followers (who have opted in to receive third party content) are also automatically included in the conversation: this means no third party (including the poster) is able to interfere with which user receives what information, where or how. This decentralised and distributed interaction across exponentially evolving networks creates;
- A blockchain-like “chain” of ongoing posts that are updated with each successive post in a similar way to Blockchain ‘smart contracts’, creating the ideal communications environment where news, ideas and information are user verifiable and unalterable by any third party across the evolving conversation networks and the platform itself. A user’s posts are public (if they choose) but their identity and personal details are encrypted and protected by both public and private keys (more on this in upcoming articles), meaning;
- For users, our site will act as a “one-stop shop” to meaningfully manage a users’ digital identity as well as the information, ideas and opinions that users share online, which in turn increases online ‘trust’ in users’ identities (without sacrificing privacy). This trust can then be parleyed via PDV into preferential online services — especially financial services such as loans, financing, etc — helping to offer financial services to the underserved, etc.
We look forward to answering all your questions. Please find our official links below.
Official Links for Decentr:
Official Email Address: Admin@decentr.net
Official Website Link: https://decentr.net/
Official Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/DecentrNet
Official Telegram Announcements Channel: https://t.me/DecentrAnnouncements
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/DecentrNet
Official Medium: https://medium.com/@DecentrNet
