Good stuff Pierre, a very nice article. Really helps highlight the questions which I’m seeing raised repeatedly by people as they learn how Solid works. They, like us, love the features, vision and potential of Solid, but many remain concerned by the issues that remain unsolved by a server based Pod infrastructure.
I think these include:
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centralisation and user capture by Pod providers. Just as we see with other ‘free’ markets, making it possible to move your data (bank account, electricity supplier, Web host etc) does not mean users will not be captured, and abused by clever, manipulative, powerful corporations. SAFE offers a better, cheaper solution without the need to move once bait becomes switch, so we can win this one.
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vulnerability of our data to hacking, surveillance, leaks and so on, due to the difficulty of securing web accessible servers, made all the worse if those servers hold the data of large numbers of users, which seems inevitable given the first point.
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the difficulty of creating a secure, and user positive application ecosystem on the Web, where PoD servers have to be paid for and developers have to earn from limited and exploitative revenue models. Again, it is wide open for exploitation by the Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft monopolies, and again SAFE has an alternative solution. One that shifts the balance towards small independent developers, but without increasing the burden for users with subscription, lock in, or ongoing hosting costs. Scalability without infrastructure costs for developers, app services that users will find cheap as well as painless to adopt and sustain, with security, privacy and data ownership baked in.