Every now and then, the “why hasn’t decentralized social networking succeeded” discussion pops back up. And inevitably, that motivates somebody who thinks they can do better. They proceed to design a new set of decentralized networking protocols, write lots of code, and get early adopters to enthusiastically adopt the New Thing. Which then, inevitably, never grows beyond a certain size.

Rinse and repeat.

How many times has that now happened? And keeps happening?

Has anybody considered that perhaps the protocols weren’t the problem? Or whether the code was written in one language or another, or did or didn’t use HTML5 or other cool new tech?