The Web had its origins in a vision of a new kind of media system -- one which completed the democratizing work of Gutenberg by giving ordinary people the power to create and publish their work to an unlimited audience. While parts of this vision have been realized, the web has ironically given rise to a dramatically more centralized and consolidated landscape of data storage and distribution -- completely unlike how libraries manage content. The recent rise of autocratic tendencies in various jurisdictions (Turkey, the Philippines, Russia, the United States) is a salutary reminder of the fragility of any centralized data storage system. In a centralized model, however, the problem of data authority is simple -- the central warehouse authorizes a piece of data simply by storing it. In the decentralized web, that problem is more difficult, as are the problems of locating data, versioning it, and storing it reliably.
The fragility of a centralized system drives the need for alternatives in data storage and distribution. An alternative to centralized data authority are community resources in data storage and distribution that allow a local library of data instead of books. A decentralized community data model solves the problem of fragility and authority by allowing the community to maintain data authority, whatever that community may be. Resources for locating, versioning and storing and retrieving data reliably need to be community accessible and maintainable to make sure decentralized networks prosper and the democratizing work beginning with Gutenburg continues.
[Add Paragraph about "moving into the need for community archiving" picking up on line of critique of the centralized web and its model of authority.]