Decentralization

Decentralization is an umbrella term for a class of network structures that have each node operate independently, yet—in many instances—manage to achieve a common goal.

Decentralization lies in stark contrast to centralization, where each node is governed by a central authority to ensure that each node is aligned in accordance to the standards as maintained by the central authority.

Entities that connect to a decentralized network do not need to exclusively utilize it. Rather, a decentralized network is merely a tool used to attain a goal.

For example, on the Fediverse, two accounts don't need to reside on the same service in order to communicate with each other. In the instance that both accounts reside on different services, they may still interact with each other, since both service providers use a commonly agreed-upon suite of protocols—those being ActivityPub and WebFinger—in order to relay messages from one account on one server, to another another account on another server.

In the above example, even though neither servers are dependent on a central authority to coordinate distribution of messages from server to server, they are still dependent on the Domain Name System (DNS)—a centralized system—to find the destination server where the recipient accounts reside.