On webmentions (and decentralisation in general)

The internet was originally built to survive a nuclear attack on the US. By design it was a distributed network connecting many computers through different paths, making it resilient in the event of a disappearing connection or computer. In recent years, however, much of the web has become more and more centralised.

A centralised approach is easier to reason about. Everything is stored in the (conceptually) same database, accessible through a uniform query language. Think Google, think Facebook, think Disqus. All offer a single sign-on mechanism into their ecosystem which allows users to react on stories, both within their apps, as well as outside in places when other proprietors have included a bit of the Google/Facebook/Disqus/… code. But in the end all the data is stored in a central store, not owned by that user, not owned by the owner of that blog, but owned by a large company that stores information for million's of other sites. C…