centralised system is one in which a central controller exercises control over
the lower-level components of the system directly or through the use of a power
hierarchy (such as instructing a middle level component to instruct a lower
level component).[1] The complex behaviour exhibited by this system is thus the
result of the central controller’s “control” over lower level components in the
system, including the active supervision of the lower level components. A
decentralised system, on the other hand, is one in which complex behaviour
emerges through the work of lower level components operating on local
information, not the instructions of any commanding influence. This form of
control is known as distributed control, or control in which each component of
the system is equally responsible for contributing to the global, complex
behaviour by acting on local information in the appropriate manner
decentralized system generally has multiple authoritative nodes, each of which
serves a subset of the total end users. In a distributed system, however, there
are no end users, because every node on the network communicates with every
other to behave as a single unit.
decentralization refers to the transfer of control and decision-making from a
centralized entity (individual, organization, or group thereof) to a distributed
network
decentralized system that operates on the blockchain is controlled by no single
authority, nor is it backed by any centralized government or nation-state
why is decentralization useful in the first place? There are generally several
arguments raised:
Fault tolerance :: decentralized systems are less likely to fail accidentally
because they rely on many separate components that are not likely.
Attack resistance :: decentralized systems are more expensive to attack and
destroy or manipulate because they lack sensitive central points that can be
attacked at much lower cost than the economic size of the surrounding system.
Collusion resistance :: it is much harder for participants in decentralized
systems to collude to act in ways that benefit them at the expense of other
participants, whereas the leaderships of corporations and governments collude
in ways that benefit themselves but harm less well-coordinated citizens,
customers, employees and the general public all the time.
