Let's focus on why things matter and what the end or goal is, rather than fixating first on the technological means. Rather than a bland technical definition, let's ask, "What is the goal of creating decentralized systems? Why should we care?" What decentralized system do you use every single day? Language! No-one decides upon the meaning of a word alone. So, we can use language - a decentralized system we are all intimate with - to reason through the questions above. What is the goal of language? One hot take: **consensus based on common use**. Or: a shared ability to make, communicate, and understand meaning. In order to be shared, any decentralized system must be made up of the simplest possible symbols, actions, and rules. Being simple means more people can learn about and use it. The more complicated your words, the less people understand you. So, **decentralized systems enable anyone who can use them to communicate simply and reliably**. What we **choose** to communicate determines the meaning and value such systems can represent. This occurs in virtuous or negative feedback loops: we can use language to say beautiful things, or ugly things, and either will shape other speakers perception of what language is "good at" or "for". In a world intent on filtering the information you receive in accordance with corporate or other agendas which do not have your best interests at heart, the ability to build systems that allow us to communicate reliably with one another is powerful and necessary. However, **it will not solve all our problems.** This is because, at the heart of simple systems for direct communication, we still find human choice: a necessarily complex phenomenon. Decentralized finance could overhaul our entire economic system by giving us the ability to communicate more meaning and purpose with the value we hold. Decentralized finance could lead to hyperfinancialisation and result in more extractive profiteering and scams. It is a choice. We are responsible for this choice. ## Features Let's describe some features of decentralized systems in order to help you identify them in the wild. 1. Decentralized systems **enable**, rather than *allow* or *permit*. No-one controls them. No-one can turn them off. This doesn't mean they can't cease to exist: languages exist only so long as there are people who want to - or are able to - use them. 2. They are **resilient**. If you knock out an Englishman in a pub, English itself is still spoken. 3. They are **replicated**. This means that there are *both* multiple speakers (or nodes) supporting **access** to the language (or network), *and* **functional** copies are available in multiple places. Even if English is banned, people know how to speak it. 4. There are different kinds of decentralization: architectural, political, and logical. In order to understand this last point, please read [Vitalik's seminal post](https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274) on the "meaning of decentralization". Funny how it always comes back to meaning, right? Author: cryptowanderer