The web-2.0-app/web-service/cloud-computing crowd seems to enjoy giving a lot of lip service to "distributed" versus "centralized". Now, I agree with the benefits of distributed architectures over centralized ones just as much as they do. But it's rather...interesting to hear it coming from them because 9 times out of 10 their crap is more centralized than traditional software.
Yea, that's right, "Heresy!" I know. So burn me at your stake. But it's true.
I have a copy of an excellent old VGA DOS game called "God of Thunder". The companies involved are long since out of business, which is unfortunate, but you know what? That doesn't affect me. I can still play it, back it up, access my old saves, whatever. If I loose my copy, chances are there's someone else out there with it that I can still get it from. No central node's been broken, because there's no central node to be broken.
Now take your typical web 2.0 "cloud" app - even one of the forward-thinking ones with a public API. The company goes down, or even more likely, just looses interest, or changes it all around, or switches to something else. Guess what? You're fucked. Yea, they might have been nice enough to give you a chance to grab your data before changing it's format or pulling the plug. And you can argue that you don't care about any of that anyway. But the fact remains: You lost the central node and can't use it. Some decentralization. So tell me, traditional software or cloud computing, which one is more centralized?
Torrent is decentralized computing. Modern network routing is decentralized computing. Hell, a private render farm is arguably decentralized computing on a smaller scale. But unless your web 2.0 app is open source and operating on multiple servers managed by multiple independent owners, then my 25-year-old copy of AppleWorks for Apple II is more decentralized than your fancy piss-cloud.
And yea, DRM does throw a wrench in the decentralized benefits of traditional software. But developers don't need to use it (even if they think they do), and it can always be circumvented (no thanks to the Orwellian DMCA, of course). "Cloud" software, on the other hand, is centralized by default. Conscious choice and effort must be made to decentralize it, and if that's not done, then one it's gone, it's gone - there's nothing to circumvent.
My point here is not to say that traditional software is better (Although, that is my opinion. It's just not the point I'm trying to make.) The point here is that if you equate web 2.0 or "cloud" with "decentralized", then you've been filled full of marketing bullshit.
If you're wondering where I got that "9 times out of 10" statistic at the beginning, I've obtained it from the same reliable source where the heads-in-the-cloud-computing folks got their ideas about what "decentralized" means. See this article's title for specific contact details.