This is what I keep thinking as well. The "kids today" don't remember usenet, IRC, etc. All were decentralized systems capitalizing on distributed compute resources and moderation. They did have problems when it comes to direction, moderation, systems playing "nice", fragmentation, etc. But I still feel the plusses outweigh the minuses in a federated system. Unfortunately the public does like their "benevolent (until they aren't) dictators"...

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