Thought I’d share this as I found it interesting - relates to open internet, freedom of information, digital security, and the importance to safeguard knowledge.
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Great interview. First I’ve heard of Filecoin and their decentralized storage protocol. Sounds like a really great way to self-host a bunch of stuff on your home network and let the extra space have it pay for itself (in theory, I’d love to see if that works IRL). Like subletting an extra room in your house.
How this would be implemented would be critical though, take two of the examples given in the video, both led by the Internet Archive. On one hand, the Wayback Machine indiscriminately scrapes everything on the internet, regardless of its historical or informational value, regardless of whether it violates someone’s copyright or privacy, and the operations are heavily centralized and non-transparent. Meanwhile a more recent project, Democracy’s Library, is free and open, and only has government research and publication, making it a valuable tool to combat misinformation, hold politicians accountable, and gain free access to paywalled information, while not harming anyone else in the process. Building a storage like this could enshittificate the internet even more, but if done correctly can make it so that WE are the ones in control of OUR information.