Comment by Nevermark
5 days ago
You should probably come out of your comphy cave.
Centralization of power isn’t a narrative it’s an accelerating reality.
I am having a hard time thinking of a mode of power that isn’t far more centralized today than it was just 2, 4, 6, 8, … years ago.
> I am having a hard time thinking of a mode of power that isn’t far more centralized today than it was just 2, 4, 6, 8, … years ago.
Electrical power. That used to be almost entirely centralised, but it's increasingly easy to be off-grid.
Manufacturing power. I don't know the full dynamics, but there's clearly a lot of cheap good tools easily available, so the term "cottage industry" still makes literal sense.
Comms. Twitter becoming X pushed a lot of decentralised alternatives with similar vibes.
That said, if you go back 20 years, you get the pre-Facebook world and the pre-Twitter world for comms, but you lose cheap good home 3D printing and a specific district in China was becoming the obvious heavily centralised place for all modern consumer electronics to get made.
Of course, go back to 1800 and you get something like, IDK, 70% of the world's internationally traded cutlery being made in Sheffield? I may be off by a lot there, that's just a rough guess given its dominance.
3D printing hasn’t taken power away from anybody.
The percentage of goods manufactured in the world that come from the set of the top 5 or top 10 or top 100 or top 1000 sources have all increased today relative to before.
I agree on electricity though. Cheap solar panels have made distributed energy possible in a way that was unimaginable even 20 years ago.
In a sibling comment, I point out that increasing long tails are not incompatible with overall mass centralization.
Relevant to your comment, increases in 3D printing capabilities have not translated into a reversal of manufacturing centralization in China’s favor.
That centralization continues as instability (often defended as an attempt to act against centralization) has perversely disrupted and pulled back manufacturing investment elsewhere.
As an individual, you may be able to do more, or choose from more niches. Even as the vast majority of resources and impact flow to fewer entities by volume.
3D printing hasn’t taken power away from anybody.
It frightens the incumbent powers badly: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2321&Year=2025
That's a good way to recognize sources and movement of power.
That is a very good point. Long tails exist. And many long tails continue to grow.
But the mass of everything keeps centralizing.
So the two are not contradictory. Together they imply an increasing dearth of middle diversity/distribution of choices and players.
Increased choices (the menu) can happen at the same time as decreased diversity of choice (flocking, herding) or capacity (sourcing).
So I don’t think you are wrong, despite centralization still being overwhelming.
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Despite 3D printers, manufacturing in particular has been centralizing in China for decades, and this trend has only increased over the last year as politics and economic instability have hampered manufacturing investment outside China.
Being able to print anything, doesn’t turn around economics and structure that hamper creating major supply chains and new manufacturing centers.
Anymore more than being able to write and publish, and an increase in voices, is turning back the general tide of people en masse viewing/reading and self-exposing themselves to fewer uncoordinated voices.
Economic power is centralizing in fewer mega corporations and in the hands of an increasingly dominant economic minority.
Tech business power in capitalization and sources for the best components is centralizing.
Political parties power is centralizing. Very dramatic changes relative to previous decentralization between different party scales, like local vs. Federal. And far more “personal” centralization like has happened at the top in US parties.
Especially in the US, dramatic power centralization across all three branches of government, over the top of the checks and balances, and intended competing roles, that maintain the US Constitution’s relevance as a constraint on autocracy.
Social media over the last two decades has greatly centralized communication and media. And most of all, popular influence.
That power grows despite the emergence of decentralized alternatives. A reversal in favor of decentralization overall would be welcome.
The creation of huge centralized governmental and corporate caches of deeper and richer surveillance information, is a massive submerged centralization of power.
Device lockdowns on outside ecosystem software continues to increase, relative to the typical consumer.
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Long tails operate at the fringes, and matter to many. But they are not slowing down overall economic, technological, social and political centralization.