Re: Prioritizing Individual Sovereignty over Interoperability

On 2019-04-30 7:24 am, Markus Sabadello wrote:
> You are right, my last comment went too far, I fully agree the community
> is gaining much, not losing.
> 
> I think what I meant to say is that "DID" is losing (or changing) its
> original meaning and intent if it we say that domain names, Facebook
> usernames, etc. can also be DIDs.
> 
> If that is the community consensus at the end of the debate, great.
> If we arrive at some middle ground that can enable the "bigger tent"
> while still maintaining the original narrative, also great.

While I accept Manu's concerns, I think also the debate has become 
fuzzy and is not over. I don't think a "bigger tent" is necessarily 
the only way to measure success. It depends on what the people in the 
various sub-tents are being helped to do by the VC/DID system envisioned.

Perhaps reframing the "DID decentralization" and did:facebook and 
did:web issue as the following will help:

1. Monetizing the Internet has created the stalking advertising model, 
which now widely accepted as seriously problematic.

2. A Verifiable Claims / DID standard has in the past promised to help 
make other monetizing methods more doable: direct sale of information, 
private transactions, pseudo-anonymity, micropayments, subscriptions.

The question for me then is whether #2 is being helped or hurt by the 
currently discussed changes. Is DID being set up now so that it will 
principally help #1, because that's where the "bigger tent" currently is?

I'm not saying I know which way the technical details about 
did:facebook and did:web fall. But if the debate could be framed about 
which of those two is being helped, it might make it easier to follow, 
at least for me.

Steven Rowat

Received on Tuesday, 30 April 2019 18:12:34 UTC