Comments on: Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ethereum-freenet-or-skynet/2014/11/19 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Wed, 01 Apr 2015 21:34:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: cjdew https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ethereum-freenet-or-skynet/2014/11/19/comment-page-1#comment-1137369 Wed, 01 Apr 2015 21:34:22 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=46858#comment-1137369 “Of course, the flipside is that Ethereum could potentially be taken over by big corporations, financial institutions, or even by the State, in an attempt to recreate the same economic system and political order that we have today – except that this time, it would be much more difficult to escape from that system. This could lead to the establishment of a totalitarian society that is (almost exclusively) regulated by self-enforcing contracts, which establish the rules that everyone must abide by, without any constitutional constraints.”

I don’t see how this scenario could ever come about on a truly decentralized platform/protocol. Sure a DAO/smart-contract could be easily setup to distribute a copyrighted song at $1 per download with no means to hold the DAO legally accountable, and sure a gov’t agency or record label could just as easily create their own DAO to distribute the same song at the same price but with revenues directed to the rightful owners/creators, HOWEVER, there is nothing to stop literally ANYBODY else from distributing the exact same content for FREE and with no restrictions at all – the point being, that yes gov’t or whoever can try to force economic rules and a political order onto a decentralized network but those rules will only be applicable to whomever CHOOSES to use that particular DAO/smart-contract, which can just as easily be circumvented by a million others that are completely unrestricted! Hence the term DECENTRALIZATION rather than a centralized network of control!!!

-Chris

]]>