Why peer-to-peer

Most of the internet you use is a client asking a server for permission. The
server owns the data, the identity, the uptime, and the off switch. That model
is convenient — and fragile. Companies die, terms change, accounts get locked,
databases leak.

Peer-to-peer flips the ownership:

• Your identity is a keypair you generate. Nobody issues it, nobody can

revoke it.

• Your data is a log you sign. Anyone can hold a copy; nobody can forge an

entry.

• The network is the users. Peers find each other directly and replicate

each other's data. There is no origin server to take down.

The tradeoffs are real, and this track does not hide them: availability is
your problem now (see Staying online without servers),
moderation has no root admin (see Trust without a boss),
and "delete" means less than people expect.

But the payoff is software that works without asking permission — the whole
reason p2pbuilders exists. Everything on this board is a 32-byte public key
talking to other 32-byte public keys.

Reading order: this chapter, then
Identity is a keypair →
Everything is a signed log →
How peers find each other →
Staying online without servers →
Trust without a boss.
When you want to touch code, jump to the
Holepunch walkthroughs or the Pear Baby Rooms track.