<story><title>The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized</title><url>https://yarmo.eu/post/future-online-identity-decentralized</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>djhaskin987</author><text>In the US, everyone uses credit cards (centralized identity) to pay for stuff.&lt;p&gt;In Mexico,  credit cards are stolen and reamed for all they&amp;#x27;re worth by criminals.  As a result, everyone uses cash (decentralized,  anonymous, difficult to use). Everyone could move to decentralized in the face of significant pressure, even if centralized identity is more convenient.</text></item><item><author>kory</author><text>If anything, my bet is the future of identity is more centralized.&lt;p&gt;Decentralized solutions, as I&amp;#x27;ve read about them in their current form, require a significant amount of technical knowledge to understand. That is, to understand both what they are and, more importantly, their benefits (&amp;quot;why does this specific solution matter to me?&amp;quot;). Past that, the user experience is extremely poor in comparison to  clicking &amp;quot;log in with Google&amp;quot;, and I&amp;#x27;m not convinced it can ever fully get there.&lt;p&gt;It is for those reasons that I think centralized identity is here to stay long term. Most people aren&amp;#x27;t going to spend the time to learn about this because they just want the easiest solution and don&amp;#x27;t care about their data being sold. I know several people in tech that fully understand the extent of how their data is used by internet corps, and don&amp;#x27;t mind it because they prefer convenience for free. And I think that&amp;#x27;s OK--it&amp;#x27;s their informed choice.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I try to login with email most of the time, and that&amp;#x27;s the limit of my drive to care about the security of my personal data. But my email is gmail, so I doubt it really makes a difference from login with Google.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kory</author><text>All central authorities are built on trust, fear, or complacency. Americans are complacent with the credit card system and trust it for the most part. The Experian breach has shown that breaches of trust are easily overlooked in favor of complacency, at least to a point.&lt;p&gt;Considering how Americans view other Americans (I hear &amp;quot;stupid&amp;quot; thrown around a lot), I strongly doubt that a decentralized authority would ever gain enough trust in the US to take hold today without a strong historical precedent.&lt;p&gt;For what it&amp;#x27;s worth, cash is still centralized. It&amp;#x27;s made &amp;quot;legitimate&amp;quot; by the power of the central government, and is managed &amp;amp; controlled by that authority. Given, it is somewhat &amp;quot;decentralized&amp;quot; because the value of fiat money comes from the people&amp;#x27;s agreement that the currency has value. On the other hand, the US dollar&amp;#x27;s global hegemony exists in large part because of global US Military presence, which is absolutely a &amp;quot;central authority&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized</title><url>https://yarmo.eu/post/future-online-identity-decentralized</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>djhaskin987</author><text>In the US, everyone uses credit cards (centralized identity) to pay for stuff.&lt;p&gt;In Mexico,  credit cards are stolen and reamed for all they&amp;#x27;re worth by criminals.  As a result, everyone uses cash (decentralized,  anonymous, difficult to use). Everyone could move to decentralized in the face of significant pressure, even if centralized identity is more convenient.</text></item><item><author>kory</author><text>If anything, my bet is the future of identity is more centralized.&lt;p&gt;Decentralized solutions, as I&amp;#x27;ve read about them in their current form, require a significant amount of technical knowledge to understand. That is, to understand both what they are and, more importantly, their benefits (&amp;quot;why does this specific solution matter to me?&amp;quot;). Past that, the user experience is extremely poor in comparison to  clicking &amp;quot;log in with Google&amp;quot;, and I&amp;#x27;m not convinced it can ever fully get there.&lt;p&gt;It is for those reasons that I think centralized identity is here to stay long term. Most people aren&amp;#x27;t going to spend the time to learn about this because they just want the easiest solution and don&amp;#x27;t care about their data being sold. I know several people in tech that fully understand the extent of how their data is used by internet corps, and don&amp;#x27;t mind it because they prefer convenience for free. And I think that&amp;#x27;s OK--it&amp;#x27;s their informed choice.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I try to login with email most of the time, and that&amp;#x27;s the limit of my drive to care about the security of my personal data. But my email is gmail, so I doubt it really makes a difference from login with Google.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>theamk</author><text>Bad example. In Australia, everyone was using credit cards.. but they have PIN code + chip.&lt;p&gt;If a centralized system is not inept, it can do all the same things decentralized things do and better.</text></comment>