<p>Much like the incredible expense of all the software-as-a-service offerings today, when taken in aggragate, in the 1960s and 1970s, computing was a “big company” sport because of expense. Large computer companies sold mainframes and smaller mainframes (called “minis”) and were very content with the status quo and profits.</p>
<p>When the idea of personal computers came along, no establish computer company had any desire to play along. In fact, when Steve Wozniak created the Apple I personal computer, he offered it to his employer Hewlett-Packard five times but the big-computing company had no interest.</p>
<p>We know the rest of the story, the industry radically de-centralized and the rise of personal computers brought in innovations such as local-area-networks, client-server, and, ultimately, the internet <em>as used</em> by the world-wide-web.</p>
<p>But, in a story as old as time, as companies sought ways to “monetize” what were entirely open protocols and data structures on the web (despite all the efforts of the old, bad Microsoft), the internet became more and more “centralized” around a few “big company” and “big computer” vendors.</p>
<p>We are back to the 1970s and another revolution is in the making. But the purpose of this piece isn’t to explain the future, but to examine why the present isn’t a place for stasis.</p>
<p>Centralization, whether in politics, economics, technology, or in a more esoteric area such as heuristics, is the attempt to offer “simplification” in exchange for “pacification”. What I mean by that is the “central planners” argue that, as the “experts”, they are better equipped to to understand (“heuristics”) a given situation, and so their “solution” is best made for “me” or “you”.</p>
<p>Radical “centralization” leads to very bad ends. Without motivation, the clients of centralization have to will to innovate and become mere consumers of the centralized “product”. Further, without any alternatives, the “product” increases in real price over time. Finally, even though the “product” price increases, the quality of the same “product” decreases since there is no reason for the center to innovate or improve. Of course, these behaviors manifest to varying degrees as a given economy (a centralization) moves from decentralization to centralization.</p>
<p>The opposite of “centralization” can be such a radical “decentralization” that it becomes practically impossible for each of us to coordinate any sort of cooperation or society. This is just as true in culture as it is in technology. There are currently efforts to “decentralize” treating everyone,frankly, as an individual “centralizer” rather than a more natural economy where each of us participate in each other’s particular sets of talents, offerings and capabilities.</p>
<p>When a society is centralized the particular capabilities of the individual, the small team, are devalued over time for the capabilities of the centralizing “authority”.</p>
<p>Can we “innovate” with respect to the offerings of Amazon Web Services, for example? Does Apple allow my team to offer new key technologies as part of the Macintosh operating system? No. But the precise opportunties are offered with Linux or in the ways Docker of Joyent’s SmartOS operate.</p>
