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Hello, everyone. It's yet another time to solve a task about comparing and contrasting between Decentralized and Centralized Applications. After attending the lecture by the steemit crypto professor @yohan2on, I became so filled with more knowledge and I will be solving the task to the best of my ability.

What are Decentralized Applications?

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Decentralized applications (dApps) are computing system or computer applications or softwares or programs that are placed and run on a blockchain or peer-peer network of computers instead of a single computer, with no central server such that each node of the system can function effectively on its own. Examples of dApps are; Steemit, Yup, BitTorrent, BitMessage, Popcorn time, Tor smd many more.

What are Centralized Applications?

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Centralized applications are software applications that have different nodes on the network and it's been controlled by a central server. Examples are; Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on.

Categories of Decentralized and Centralized Applications

The applications, be it Decentralized can be placed under different categories; Social media, Games and Storage/file sharing Apps.

Social Media:

•Steemit (Decentralized)
Facebook(Centralized)

•Ecency (Decentralized)
WhatsApp (Centralized)

Game:

•EOS racing (Decentralized)
Need for speed (Centralized)

Storage/file sharing Apps:

•BitTorrent Speed (Decentralized)
•Dropbox (Centralized

Facebook vs Steemit

Facebook

This is where I am coming to. If you haven't used Facebook before, it is either because you are not a fan of social media or you do not have a gadget that can browse the internet. Facebook came with the aim of connecting people with one another but then the business model of Facebook goes beyond that as Facebook is known to be an advertising and marketing company.

Facebook being a centralized company and a centralized application has proven to be a company with very low integrity as it has been involved in several scandals such as;
The Cambridge Analytical scandal proves that Facebook sells our data, Buying up smaller companies that are supposed to be competitors so as to be dominant in the market.

Facebook, being a centralized application is known to;

• Mine User Data without User Authorization

• Misuse users data for profit-purposes

• Collects images using a Facial Recognition Database

• Using “Shadow Profiles” to Collect Non-User’s Data.

Facebook Downside

• Facebook doesn't monetize contents and only favors big marketers

• Targetted marketing

• Data breach since its data is stored in a central location

• Data is owned by Facebook

• No self-governance

• Partly encrypted as it doesn't exist on the blockchain

Steemit

The decentralized social media platform built on the blockchain has been existing since 2016 which rewards users for their contributions and activities on the platform when users create content and get an upvote from users on the platform.

With Steemit, nobody owns the blockchain where its data is stored as its data is stored on decentralized nodes on the blockchain which gives nobody the right to owns your data. Unlike centralized social media like Facebook, Steemit has a tokenomics which helps to incentivize users when they create content on the blockchain.

Steemit doesn't sell users' data as the data is publicly displayed on the blockchain ledger and thanks to the Blockchain protection, users' privacy is secured. Contents are not tailored and filtered to certain people for advertising purposes but rather, users can view whatever content they want at will. With Steemit, it is easy to process the reward system/wallet giving users a feeling of being part of the community and part of the ecosystem.

Conclusion

Since I became a part of the decentralized ecosystem, I have preferred a decentralized application to a centralized application for reasons of flaws from centralized applications with respect to privacy, security, data mining, and selling of data.

Cc:-
@steemitblog
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02
@yohan2on

Thank You