Editing Dumb contracts (section)

== Peer-to-peer ==

Bitcoin and similar decentralized programs used this term to refer to the unstructured network typologies formed by the users running the software. It’s a definition that usually implies having the same properties of decentralization and thus has become synonymous with decentralization.

The outside usage of “peer-to-peer” is different and is more generally used to refer to any service whose functionality is provided by its users. Good examples include Uber and Airbnb. So while this may not be intentionally misleading its still quite misleading in the context of blockchain tech.

Recommended definition: Use client-to-client to talk about peer-to-peer computer networks (imperfect since every client is also a server but that seems to be implied here.) The service-based definition of p2p seems to predate modern networks so they can keep that definition.

Thus under these new terms we can now talk about how the Bitcoin software is client-to-client, peer-to-peer, and decentralized to denote its network topology, logical service provisioning, and organizational trust model without any confusion – useful right?

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