IETF RFC 9518: Can Internet Standards Combat the Tide of Centralization?

The Internet's enduring strength has always been its decentralized nature—no single entity controls its core functions, enabling permissionless innovation and broad adoption. Yet, today's landscape tells a different story: dominant platforms like social networks and cloud services have become so entrenched that they're often mistaken for the Internet itself. A newly published IETF informational RFC, "Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards" (RFC9518), tackles this paradox head-on, arguing that while standards bodies have limited power to curb centralization, they can still play a pivotal role in preserving the Internet's open architecture.

Defining Centralization and Its Double-Edged Sword

RFC 9518, authored by Martin Thomson and published for informational purposes by the RFC Editor, defines centralization as the state where a single entity or small group can observe, capture, control, or extract rent from an Internet function. This spans protocols like IP (RFC791), BGP (RFC4271), and HTTP (HTTP), as well as higher-level services such as social networking and file sharing. The document distinguishes technical centralization (e.g., single points of failure) from control-based forms, noting that the latter—often driven by economic or political factors—poses greater challenges for standards bodies.

Centralization isn't inherently evil. The RFC acknowledges its benefits, such as economies of scale in cloud services or the necessity of a single 'source of truth' in DNS root zones. However, it highlights risks like power imbalances (the 'panopticon' and 'chokepoint' effects), stifled innovation, reduced competition, monocultures amplifying vulnerabilities, and self-reinforcing data advantages for incumbents. For developers and engineers, these translate to real-world impacts: a bug in a dominant router codebase or recommendation algorithm can cascade globally, while proprietary lock-in hinders permissionless experimentation.

"Centralization is most concerning when it is not broadly held to be necessary or beneficial; when it has no checks, balances, or other mechanisms of accountability; when it selects 'favorites' that are difficult (or impossible) to displace; and when it threatens the architectural features that make the Internet successful."

(RFC 9518, Section 2.1)

The Limits of Technical Decentralization

The RFC explores decentralization strategies like federation (e.g., email's MTA model via SMTP (RFC5321) or XMPP chat (RFC6120)), distributed consensus (e.g., blockchains), and multi-stakeholder governance (e.g., ICANN for DNS). Yet, it cautions that technical fixes alone fall short. Federation in email has led to market concentration due to anti-spam complexities, while XMPP's largest deployments opt out of federation. Blockchains decentralize operation but often centralize governance or other functions like rendezvous.

For protocol designers, this means decentralization requires more than clever crypto or federation—it's political and contextual. The document warns against overreliance on buzzwords, urging engineers to specify what they're decentralizing and weigh trade-offs like availability vs. resilience in cloud or mobile ecosystems.

Recommendations for Standards Bodies

Thomson offers pragmatic advice for IETF and similar groups:

  • Bolster Legitimacy: Enhance participation accessibility to counter perceptions of 'Big Tech' bias, leveraging IETF's open processes for regulatory influence.
  • Scrutinize Claims Critically: Avoid blanket 'Centralization Considerations' mandates; instead, demand detailed analysis of technical vs. non-technical factors.
  • Prioritize Interoperability: Standardize proprietary functions (e.g., chat portability) to enable legal-backed mandates like the EU's DMA.
  • Facilitate Switching: Design for low-friction provider substitution through complete specs and diverse implementations (citing RFC5218).
  • Constrain Intermediaries: Limit third-party observation/control (e.g., via HTTPS evolutions and CONNECT method in HTTP).
  • Enforce Boundaries: Use encryption and stable interfaces to protect against lower-layer chokepoints and proprietary extensions.

These steps empower developers by creating touchpoints for substitution—imagine forking a social protocol or switching CDNs without data loss.

Implications for Developers and the Internet's Future

RFC 9518 arrives amid growing regulatory scrutiny of tech giants and experiments in decentralized tech like ActivityPub (Mastodon). For engineers building on HTTP or designing new protocols, it underscores that standards must deliver immediate utility, not just frameworks vulnerable to extension hijacks like SOAP. As regulators eye interoperability mandates, IETF guidance could prevent architecturally naive rules that stifle innovation.

Ultimately, the RFC reframes the debate: standards can't mandate decentralization, but by enabling it technically, they fortify the Internet against centralization's creep. In an era where a single outage at AWS or a mobile carrier can ripple worldwide, this blueprint for resilient design is a call to action for the technical community to shape its destiny proactively.