Urbit

Status

The Rise and Fall of Urbit

Adina Glickstein:

"Yarvin’s stated aim for Urbit was to create a decentralized network where each user owns all his data: a private virtual machine, protected from surveillance and attention economy ad-tech. The network’s address space—its virtual real estate—is divided into a federated hierarchy of “planets,” “stars,” and “galaxies,” each unique according to a 28-bit identifier connected to the Ethereum blockchain. A casual user might purchase a planet, the minimal permanent parcel of address space; their host star serves as their infrastructure operator, akin to an ISP (internet service provider), which in turn is housed under a galaxy—the network overlord, ostensibly vested with governance power. If an individual at any layer of the hierarchy disagrees with the order they are subject to, they can exit: download their data and migrate to another host star or galaxy.

I liked that Urbit aligned itself with peer-to-peer networking and open-source software. It promised to safeguard against the spying, exploitation, and lock-in I had come to expect from Web 2.0 (or as Urbit promotional literature calls it, “MEGACORP”). Using a decentralized network structure, Urbit enthusiasts believed, would lead to a more equitable social life online. What was missing in my relationship to the MEGACORP platforms, I realized, was sovereignty: I was a serf, a voiceless and expendable user at the base of a virtual fiefdom. The longing for sovereignty over my networking stack was connected to deeper desires. I may not own my own home or feel that I have much say in the direction of the country, but online, at least, I would have both freedom and agency."

(https://www.compactmag.com/email/8e405f6f-6146-42fb-ae99-76d49144967b/?)