decentralised and distributed ecosystems

[gpestana]

Distributed systems map to complex organisms, while decentralised protocols map to social and inter-organism interactions and cooperation.

When independent organisms interact with each other, interaction protocols, management expectations, incentives - the whole game theory realm - comes into play. Interactions are dynamic but are previously defined and agreed upon in order for the organisms to be able to communicate efficiently, make decisions and achieve their individual and possibly collective goals.

In the realm of network systems and computing, the dynamics are the same. As networking and technology develops, we're heading towards a complex system where organisms (from cellphones to large distributed cloud systems) interact with each other following a diversity of protocols and hierarchies. Protocols between organisms are defined implicitly or explicitly. It is the systems designer and developers work to define how the systems will interact with each other, what hierarchies will naturally be defined by the computing organisms interactions.

Centralised models rely on hierarchies of power to function. Authority - the service - provides a service (resources, security, convenience, knowledge, community) while the consumers and users of the service trade their resources. The more consumers, the bigger the influence is accumulated by the service provider, providing it more authority and power. This model resembles the historical feudalism social system predominant in 15th century Europe.

Decentralisation is the natural step towards a more sophisticated and innovative computational ecosystem. Every computational organism can be as complex as it requires and wants: the resources, convenience and costs of maintenance will be low and at everyone's reach. It is easy and secure to build and maintain a complex system (distributed system). Naturally, complex systems need to communicate and interact with each other as equals and their interaction protocols is defined based on mutual agreement and best suited to the task at hand and incentives. Interactions will be predominantly peer-to-peer. Decentralisation protocols and models will power a whole new range of complexity and cooperation between organisms, which will form networks capable of achieving much more than any individual complex computational organism would.

The future of computing is a decentralised ecosystem of complex distributed systems built and managed by individuals. It will be an overlay network on top of our human society, where everyone is running complex computational nodes which interact and cooperate with each other.