Logical peer-to-peer

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Logically peer-to-peer architectures enable communication which is peer-to-peer in the abstract or logical sense, but not in terms of material reality. Such systems include all currently operational forms of peer-to-peer communication and exchange, including bittorrent, the freenet project, I2P, social networks, and e-mail.

The reason that this systems can only be considered logically peer-to-peer is that they rely on paid bit movers to move data from one point to another. In existing architectures, patterns of information exchange qualify as peer-to-peer, because data networks do not actively convert data into information. (Information here is meant to indicate intelligible or meaningful symbols and images). Yet patterns of data exchange do not qualify as peer-to-peer, because data is moved from point to point by paid intermediaries (data networks).