Steemains: Decentralization Will Not Be Stopped And Will Crush The Facebooks Of The World

Bold statement, I know.

Many will object to this. After all, there is a long track record of the masses rejecting decentralization and open source in favor of the centralized, controlled systems. It really is only the geeks who truly appreciate getting out from under the thumbs of these entities instead opting for the freedom of open source.

That is all true. However, there is a big reason why this time will be different as I will show here.

To do so, I will start with a little analogy.

Let us presume you own a home that is sitting on some oil. What is under your land has value, something that you know. Oil companies want the resource so they are willing to pay you for the rights to drill. They pull the oil out of the ground which they take to market and sell.

All is good.

Now let us change it up a bit. Suppose we start with the same scenario but add the twist that the oil company is not going to pay you for it. Instead, they will take the oil. Also, you are the one who is going to have to get it out of the ground and deliver it to them. It is your responsibility to do the work. Finally, any environmental effects or negative consequences are yours to deal with alone. If the drinking water is polluted, well you are the one who has to drink it.

The second scenario does not sound very appealing, does it? Yet this is exactly what people are living under right now.

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Data is the new oil.

Not only are people living under the scenario I just presented, until recently, they were not even aware of the oil that they were sitting upon. Unlike the major corporations, they were completely oblivious to it.

While cryptocurrency is the first widespread application on blockchain, personalized, secured data could end up being the biggest.

The masses are starting to understand the "oil "they own and how valuable it is. At the same time, they are also realizing how unsafe it is now. Each time there is another Facebook breach, more people wake up. Over the next year, we are going to see a number of high profile hacks where people's "oil" is spilled. Why do I write this? Simply because they cannot prevent it. Centralized systems will not stop being breached.

We are going to see digital ID systems that are on the blockchain which will enable one to own and control his or her data. This is not something that can ever take place on a centralized system. The days of trusting a third party entity to protect us are going to come to an end.

The true value of blockchain is that it creates the trust. A decentralized system is much more difficult to hack since it does lack the single point of entry. The presents a more secure system than we presently operate under.

So what about the Facebooks of the world? What if they create a token?

Looking at it from this viewpoint is missing the evolution of blockchain. Cryptocurrency is only one application just like email was the first mainstream app for the Internet. There will be other things coming behind it.

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Even if the traditional entities create a token, they are still centralized. Also, their business models are still built upon advertising. That requires data. There is no way the traditional companies are going to give up the revenue that comes from advertising or data selling. Wall Street will not allow it.

There will come a point where people will realize the "oil" they have. It will suddenly dawn on them what the do online has value yet someone else was profiting. What do you think happens when this day occurs?

They can FUD cryptocurrency all they want but data, that is beyond their attacks. We are now seeing word spread which is going to back these entities into a corner. It will probably take another 5 years before we see the masses wake up. Until then, we will just keep pushing the decentralization envelop in hopes that some will listen.

Eventually, someone in the back yard running the drilling rig for free will look at the neighbor lounging around while being paid by the individual users of the oil and wonder what is wrong. How do I get paid too?

When enough ask that question, what the stocks of companies like Facebook start to collapse.

In the end, as valuable as cryptocurrency could be, data is a lot more valuable.

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