I got involved in a decent discussion about decentralized social networks on App.net this week. We were talking specifically about the Tent protocol.

WTF is Tent

Tent is protocol that anyone can use to communicate with any app, site, thing that supports the Tent protocol. Theoretically many services doing slightly different things could talk with each other as long as they were all using the Tent protocol.

So this Decentralized Thing

One of the reasons for the big outcry with Twitter’s changes to the API is that, they hold all the data. You either play by their rules or you don’t get access. I can’t take me tweets anywhere, there is no export and the API changes mean that they are going to be shutting down any service that archives your tweets. You are totally at their mercy and have to take any type of abuse they give, or you just have to leave and take nothing with you. It’s like getting out of an abusive relationship.

A decentralized system would consist of multiple servers owned by different parties that could talk with each other. If you’re not happy with how the owner of server A is treating your data, head over to server B.

Since you would be no longer beholden to 1 party theoretically you’d be treated nice to keep your business (no one is going to host these servers for long without some revenue model).

Does Tent Change Everything like they Claim?

The first full sentence on the Tent page, claims that they change everything. I don’t think that’s the case.

First you have to set up a server, or know someone that has it set up. Marketers won’t be doing this to make money till there is a business to be had, if no one installs or works with Tent there will be no business potential.

I won’t fault them right now for not even having any apps that are using the Tent.io protocol, it just started this month. So let’s make a note to look back in 6 months to see what is happening.

So You’re on App.net

Funny enough, I don’t think that App.net solves the real issue with Twitter (at least from the data perspective we are talking about here). Yes App.net does allow data export so you can walk away with you data and…do absolutely nothing with it. It’s totally useless since you can’t take it anywhere else.

I suppose if App.net was using Tent.io and there was another service that was also using the Tent.io protocol you could move the data over. I must admit I’d love this, but I just don’t see a scenario where this makes sense for companies.

App.net is ultimately trying to sell the underlying platform that runs App.net. It’s not in their best interest to let customers move away to another server, that’s not running their platform. Yes App.net is the darling of all nerds, they’re doing the right thing being open and all that. Don’t fool yourself though, at some point each of those people have to feed their children. If App.net makes it not possible to do that they will either kill it or make decisions to ensure that they can feed their children. My kid likes to eat, I certainly can’t blame them for wanting to provide for families.

There was a time when Twitter was all about how awesome their open API was. How it would always be open so just use it. I think we can all see how that is turning out.

I certainly have no inside information about where App.net is heading but it doesn’t take a genius to know that in business if it’s not making money it’s not going to survive for long.

So Cynical

Yes I am. Don’t totally misunderstand me though. I would love Tent.io to succeed. I would love for everything to be a decentralized system that was not beholden to any 1 major vendor. But then I look at things like the lack of polish in Linux (wooohoo hate mail on the way) and the polished robust ecosystem of Apple (yes their web services are terrible).

Admittedly I also see the awesomeness that is WordPress. It powers millions of sites on the web so there might be hope, I’m just not holding my breath.