Re: [GSoC 23] distributed substitutes, cost of storage

[Attila Lendvai <attila@lendvai.name>]

thanks for the detailed elaboration Maxime!

prior to reading your email i was blind to the (rather obvious) fact that the current Guix servers are already run by someone (a peer), and they consume quite some resources, and it's currently financed through donations.

considering this, i now find it reasonable to have the resharing enabled by default. thanks for fixing this glitch in my model of reality, and sorry for being too dim here!


> Also, this crypto coin balance problem can be avoided by simply not
> basing your P2P system on money (crypto coins or otherwise); it's a
> problem that those systems invented for theirselves.


the root problem is efficient ways of locking out non-cooperating agents from the fruits of the cooperation. using a balance sheet, and monetary settlements above a certain threshold, is one attempt at solving this task. it's yet to be seen which solution will survive this evolutionary landscape.


> ... it appears that your view is that it's ok to spend resources of
> other people even without trying to reciprocate (), and that it is
> unreasonable to expect reciprocation by default?


no. i just lacked the necessary level of understanding of the terrain here.


> () I don't consider Swarm to be a P2P system -- Swarm by design and
> intentionally actively maintains a class distinction between customers
> (people paying for storage and uploading) and, let's say, entrepreneurs
> (people getting paid for storage and downloading). While sometimes a
> customer might also be an entrepreneur, by this inherent difference
> between customers and entrepreneurs in Swarm, by definition they aren't
> peers.


in the model proposed by Swarm every participant plays by the same rules. and on top of that, as long as someone's use of the shared resources is balanced with their contribution to the cooperation, then there are no monetary transactions involved. i don't see how this wouldn't qualify as p2p.

the only "class distinctions" i see here is the issuance of their crypto token, and the "unfair advantage" of the early investors and the founders (except the disadvantage of those who may end up losing their invested time/money if the project fails to deliver).


> That's ‘consent’ the same way that cookie banners without a "Reject"
> button () are consent. It's certainly ‘Informed’ and it's useful to
> warn people with low or expensive bandwidth to minimize the bandwidth
> limits in the GNUnet configuration, but to call it ‘consent’ is
> doublespeak. I would prefer to not have doublespeak and instead to be
> honest that it's a requirement for installing Guix instead of twisting
> things into ‘consent’.


i lost you here, and -- possibly due to that -- i find the doublespeak reference unfair.

consent means that i understand what's happening, and i agree to it, while i have the option to reject the situation/association without major harms to my interests.

if i'm aware that Guix will use my upstream (think of metered connections), and i install it anyway, and then i don't turn this feature off... then by those actions i implicitly consent to this happening.

it's somewhat tangential here, but the "reject cookies button" is not always a viable option. sometimes in life the only option besides agreeing to something offered is to "close the browser tab"; i.e. stop associating, which is not installing Guix in this context, which is not a major hindrance to anyone.. (although, this is arguable... :)

-- 
• attila lendvai
• PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39
--
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
	— Smedley Butler (1881–1940), 'War is a racket' (1935), US Marine major general (highest rank at that time)