For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people's hands. (The first four words of Facebook's mission have always been "give people the power".) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force.
But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.
There are important counter-trends to this --like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.
This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I'm looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together.
-Mark Zuckerburg
Mr. Zuckerberg makes some strong points about how companies and governments are becoming larger and more centralized. This is taking power away from the people and shifting it to a few powerful entities. Most of these large entities have been exposed for spying on their users and selling personal information. It's Ironic how this opinion is coming from Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is the largest social media network and they are selling data about you for pennies on the dollar. This is Facebook's bread and butter and many people doubt that his intentions are genuine.
When I think about Facebook in the future, I don't think of a decentralized platform giving back to the community. I get more of a Black Mirror vibe. A platform that controls society through participation in social media. If you haven't checked out Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 01, here is a short clip:
Mark's post feels like a preemptive attack to snub out up and coming decentralized social media networks like Steem that show boundless potential. There is no way that facebook would give up centralization for decentralization. Having exclusive rights to users data is the golden goose paying the dividends of the publicly traded company. It's more likely that Mr. Zuckerberg was rolling through coinmarketcap and saw this chart:
Likely he is seeing another trend and trying to hop on the bandwagon. Funny how he always seems to be following these two gentlemen:
My final thoughts for you Mr. Zuckerberg:
The Steem engine is coming and when users get educated about the power of decentralization over centralization and how content can both be fun to post AND profitable... well.. you might end up like this guy..
Cheers.
-- Cryptoindex
