The nature of a system is what it enables

There’s a discussion going on the Topology discord about what systems can be described as peer-to-peer.

I think the whole thing is mostly academic, and too focused on implementation details.

Sure, your particular choice of blockchain might have a peer-to-peer gossip protocol and consensus mechanism, but that’s rather irrelevant if people are mostly using tokens with a freeze authority, isn’t it?

And while Binance Smart Chain might have a P2P protocol for sharing information, that’s entirely irrelevant when it’s completely proof-of-authority and a single institution chooses who gets to validate.

If you are looking to describe a system, describe the kind of things it enables that no other approach does.

That’s something the local-first camp does right, and something other projects should strive for.

Published: 2024-07-06