The Age of A Decentralized Internet Is Very Slowly Approaching...
As Spock would say, "It's only logical".
I’ve been Star Trekking these days, so excuse my Spock quote. Now let me tell you why we are inching closer towards a decentralized internet. Ironically, I’m typing this after I did an extensive research for a couple of friends as they might be involved in a crypto signal selling scam.
Cryptocurrency is not the basis of decentralization. The same could be said for electricity and the internet. And yes, if anything related to crypto is sounding too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.
Let’s go back to the basics.
A centralized internet is the one we have these days, mostly. You probably felt that if you are an instagram or a facebook user.
You might have had your post removed for moderation.
You might have your post gone viral due to the algorithm.
The algorithm decided on both events. This particular algorithm is controlled by Zuckerberg. Another is controlled by Musk. This is when it comes to social media.
When it comes to Google search, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) has every data it needs about you and what you search.
As long as data flows to a center, like Google, Musk, or Zuck, then it is centralized.
Crypto does not necessarily mean decentralization. For example, Coinbase and Binance are both cryptocurrency exchanges that are centralized and controlled by a few.
Bitcoin itself is a decentralized currency — it is not controlled by a single entity.
Now that definitions are out of the way. You need to know a few things.
Centralization is not evil.
Centralization of data is not horrible. Think of a messed up room — wouldn’t it look better if everything was piled up in the center of the room? Okay, that’s not a great example.
Saving your project files into a single folder, that sounds like a smart approach, right?
The problems are numerous:
That folder could be mistakenly deleted.
A hack could affect it.
You are the owner of the folder.
The last one being the most major problem. You’re a good person, I hope. Others are not so great. Some might decide to publish the content of this folder online, even though the data is private.
Centralization of data makes it more organized. But in terms of safety and data privacy, it could be enhanced.
The keyword here is enhanced.
Decentralization is an enhanced or an evolved version of centralization. So there is nothing wrong with centralization.
There was nothing wrong with Floppy disks.
There was nothing wrong with MP3 players.
We just started using the more evolved version of those.
Decentralization is simply the evolved, updated version.
The idea and concept of decentralization is promoting a healthier version of the internet we have. It’ll take time (Possibly, alot of time.)
But at the end of the day, the evolved technology slowly gets adopted by people.
Yes, VR and AR will be a part of the future.
Yes, the metaverse is going to be a big deal.
Yes, cryptocurrency will be major.
Yet, nobody knows when people are ready for this. There are analysts who could predict. But the accuracy of these predictions are imperfect.
If the world’s most valuable company, bet on mixed reality with their Apple Vision Pro, only to eventually flop, then you can see how analysts can’t foresee people’s behaviour towards technology.
Such technology can not be compared with a hyper growing app like Uber. Yes, Uber grew beyond many people’s dreams. But it does not really require major changes from the consumers.
You’ll need to download an app (which most of the people already know how to do), then use it to order a taxi. The idea is creative. The tech is what we were familiar with.
A shift to a decentralized internet is not as easy. That’s what developers nowadays are struggling with. Consumers are used to this centralized internet world. For them to shift, we have to give them that sense of familiarity.
Bluesky attempts to do that by creating a decentralized version of X that people would know how to use. But even that is questionable when it comes to decentralization.
What’s happening nowadays is that people are starting to slowly feel the pain points of centralization. In time, when a better solution shows up, it’ll just sound logical.
The world is shifting to decentralization in a very very slow pace. We never said no to a more secure, advanced, and evolved piece of technology. We won’t start now.