inignoct wrote:
]] this guy makes some interesting points, but i think his final
]] conclusion is wrong. There are still a lot of IM services out
]] there, with varying numbers of users. What happened is not
]] that all but one died out, but that developers built clients
]] that talk to all the networks, and users registered accounts
]] with 2 or 3 or more different IM systems. I could see a
]] similar thing happening with file sharing systems... they'll
]] become neighborhoods, more or less suited to particular types
]] and classes of information, and clients will be built that
]] transparently handle all of them at once.
]
]The thing is that a centralized search system is a lot more ]efficient and finding the file that you want then these p2p ]networks. (This is essentially why I think MemeStreams is better ]then a network of distributed bloggers using reputation enabled RSS ]aggregators. The data is simply more reliable, easier to access, ]and easier to index, when it is all stored in a central location.)

why can't there be a few different central-server based networks? There are different ways of doing the same thing, and optimizations that could be made for particular classes of information.

i'm not necessarily saying he's wrong. i was just proposing an alternate possibility that i consider at least equally likely at this stage.

of course, the whole thing hinges on the adoption of compulsory licencing, which is a whole bag of uncertainty and technical trouble.

RE: LawMeme - Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google