One of the strongest myths of Web3 infrastructure has become the concept of perfect decentralization. It implies an uncoordinated, unsuspecting, untitled, and non failing system. This vision is refined and perfect in white papers and marketing decks. Almost inevitably, it cannot be the case in the production environment. Most decentralized systems, unlike storage networks, do not show the difference between ideological purity and operational reality. Data should be durable through time and also resilient to erratic network conditions as well as long lasting their essentials long after incentives are spent. Walrus views decentralization as a process to maximize reliability, security and resilience, but not as an end in itself, but a means to achieve the goal effectively, and only where it is meaningful to do so. This alteration of the absolutism is no compromise that is how the decentralized systems already live in reality.
The assumption of perfect decentralization is the ability to have players that are always acting, where incentives never leave, and infrastructure is always existing in constant conditions. Storage networks run contrary to each of the three assumptions. Nodes keep unavailable and sometimes forever. Operators are reactive to market forces, and not protocol ideals. Resource contention and partitions as well as network latency are not edge cases and occur on an everyday basis. There are always systems of operation that are based on perfect behavior and that will eventually crash without any noises going on until the data is lost and it is too late to retrieve it. Walrus begins with the converse assumption: the default of decentralized infrastructure instability. Instead of trying to design the system to be not unstable, the protocols introduce designs of the system that anticipate instability, tolerate it and adapt to it. This is very important differentiation. Reliability is not the act of falsely believing that failures will not occur but rather it is the design of systems where failures will not seem so significant once they do occur.
One of the major factors why the myth about ideal decentralization is unbroken is a predisposition to think about decentralization as a dichotomy: it can either be worse or it can be better. Walrus rejects this framing. Decentralization is a process existing on a continuum, and various levels within a system have different advantages of the process. Decentralization is of huge benefit to data custody, whereby by sharing data in many independent nodes the probability against censorship, capture, and catastrophic loss is enormous. Structure, clarity and predictability, on the other hand, are advantages of operational coordination. Walrus decentralizes when decentralization has a significant role of reducing risk, and centralizes when coordination has a significant role of improving behavior of the system. It is this balance which enables the network to be resilient without being unmanageable.
The explicit recognition of the importance of coordination is one of the most debatable issues of this methodology. In most of Web3, coordination is addressed as a vice to be concealed, as opposed to being a designed requirement. Walrus thinks to the contrary. Storage systems need constant operations: data correction, rebalancing, checking and availability operation. Such processes cannot simply occur in a free vacuum without permission. Walrus makes coordination made visible and observable, constrained and explicit, thereby limiting the power structures of operations that remain within the shadowy realms and obscure decisions. Coordination does not emerge as a side effect of protocol; instead, it is incorporated as a part of the surface area of the protocol. This openness renders the system less complex to argue about, audit, and place confidence in in the long term.
Another area where Walrus is inconsistent with the maxims of decentralization is economic realism. Several storage protocols essentially hold the view that incentives, after being put in place, would be adequate indefinitely. They presuppose that storage providers will remain involved as long as the protocol is in existence. Walrus considers storing as an economic relationship at all times instead of a single transaction. Storage costs never disappear and so does operator opportunity cost. The protocol mitigates over-reliance on optimistic assumptions of long-term altruism by ensuring that the point of incentives is consistent with what can be immediately seen rather than what is expected to occur down the line: i.e. availability, durability and responsiveness. The rewards are given on what the participants do and not what the system wants them to do. This is the basis in economic reality, which makes the network more predictable within the varying market conditions.
As perhaps the greatest end result of the myth of perfect decentralization being dropped, then the way failure is handled at Walrus. In idyllic systems, failure is an exception. Failure is the input of design in Walrus. Nodes are expected to churn. Variance in performance will be anticipated. There will be participants who will depart at the worst time. The system is designed in such a way that no point and operator or occurrence can compromise data reliability. Recovery directions are not emergency procedures they are standard procedures. Destruction is not radical, but progressive. This philosophy has no exclusion of failure but it ensures that failure does not spiral into system failure which is what users are concerned with in the end.
To constructors and consumers, such common sense perspective of decentralization is converted into a much better thing than ideological rectitude confidence. The assurance that data will not be impacted even during the times when the network is overwhelmed. The assurance that incentives are not going to fall off an overnight. The assurance that the system has been constructed in such a way that it can withstand years of unpredictable performance, rather than ideal test conditions. Walrus is not purported to be understandingly decentralized, as understanding decentralization fails at long-term interaction with reality. Rather, it is geared towards permanence, intelligibility, and stamina. The most significant question with decentralized storage is not anymore how pristine a network appears on a piece of paper, but whether it can be relied upon even after the information has become outdated. Walrus is constructed with such a horizon in mind.
