The current implementation of the AMP cache servers obviously doesn't help the decentralization.
I think what Spivak is saying though is right. If we could move from location addressing (dns+ip) to content-addressing , but not via the AMP cache servers, in general, anyone could serve any content on the web. Add in signing of the content addressing, and now you can also verify that content is coming from NYTimes for example.
Also, I'd say that the internet (transports, piping, glue) is decentralized. The web is not. Nothing seems to work with each other and most web properties are fighting against each other, not together. Not at all like the internet is built. The web is basically ~10 big silos right now, that would probably kill their API endpoints if they could.
I think this would require an entirely new user interface to make it abundantly clear that publisher and distributor are seperate roles and can be seperate entities.
I don't think this should be shoehorned into the URL bar or into some meta info that no one ever reads hidden behind some obscure icon.
Isn't it already the case though with CloudFlare and other CDNs serving most of the content? Very few people really get their content from the actual source server anymore.
That's a good point. I just feel that there is an important distinction to be made between purely technical distribution infrastructure like Cloudflare's and the sort of recontextualisation that happens when you publish a video on Youtube. I'm not quite sure where in between these two extremes AMP is positioned.
Thank you for this explanation. AMP has put a really bad taste in my mouth but what you describe here does have some interesting implications. Something to consider for sure.
I think what Spivak is saying though is right. If we could move from location addressing (dns+ip) to content-addressing , but not via the AMP cache servers, in general, anyone could serve any content on the web. Add in signing of the content addressing, and now you can also verify that content is coming from NYTimes for example.
Also, I'd say that the internet (transports, piping, glue) is decentralized. The web is not. Nothing seems to work with each other and most web properties are fighting against each other, not together. Not at all like the internet is built. The web is basically ~10 big silos right now, that would probably kill their API endpoints if they could.