Decentralization is Not, Itself, An Answer to The Money Question

Whatever the benefits of decentralization may be, hyping it up becomes a problem when it's presented as a workaround for ignoring the money question. The money question (i.e. "how are you funding this thing?") is what actually determines a platform's incentives—a problem that has been touched on but quickly brushed aside by major proponents of decentralization. Decentralization, they say, is supposed to make the money question irrelevant by making it easier for users to switch from one site to another. This argument overlooks the limitations of switching as a strategy, neglects to account for how things actually play out in practice, and fails to propose a less exploitative approach to funding social media.

Crossposted to Pillowfort and Neocities. For off-site linking, I recommend using the version on Neocities.

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