Our civilization is probably quite old (probably, because we haven't found any other civilization to compare, yet). Everything changes with time, humanity also. Some changes (like evolution from homo neanderthalensis to homo sapiens) takes ages to complete, but some of them are more sudden and rapid. The slowest modifications are being called the evolution while the fastest are called the revolution.
We have had only a few significant (disruptive) revolutions in our history. First one was The Neolithic Revolution (12,500 years ago), we became settled and transformed from hunters to farmers. There was also an urban revolution, scientific revolution and the latest one - industrial. There were also smaller revolutions caused by great inventions. The writing was probably the most important one, but the wheel, engine, plane, phone (probably way more) had also played a role in human "development". My thesis is that some time from now historians will call the internet a revolution.
The Internet is truly revolutionary and disruptive, no one can discredit that. Ability to transfer that much data around the world, in a few seconds and almost with no cost, have never existed before. However, "with great power comes great responsibility". The uncontrolled worldwide web is heaven for every human being, also for the immoral ones. Surface (or public) web, where Facebook/Google/Youtube exists is a safe place, because it is controlled by centralized organizations. The deep web is poorly controlled and mostly boring. Only the dark web (darknet) is truly uncontrolled, just a bit harder to access and full of weird stuff.
#FunFact- most people have access/use only to 4% of the data in the WWW.
So the problem is choosing safety or freedom. You either need to trust the third site to verify your everything you read or buy online, or risk getting defrauded or misled.
Blockchain is the solution. This is the only (yet invented) way to achieve trust without revealing each others identity or asking the third site to verify pieces of given information or transaction. Need to clarify what I mean by "blockchain": not just a cumulative/escalating database but a decentralized system which verifies information given to the net, through anonymous nodes heading to consensus and (at the end) saving it in as a marked block in an immutable database.
Worldwide web is a tool for sharing data and blockchain may become a tool for verifying it without losing anonymity and giving up freedom of speech and action.
A possibility that currently, existing web giants (Facebook/Google/...) will adopt blockchain is close to 0. There is a chance that they will use that technology to improve their databases, but losing control is not what they wish. But they are only 4% of the World wide web. The reason why we have fallen in love with the internet is not only the ability to transfer data, it is freedom of expression and exploration, freedom of asks and communication. That freedom is fading as the web becomes centralized. It becomes that because in a permissionless network there will always be some corrupt and immoral members. To prevent that without losing safety and freedom, the internet must become a decentralized network with an anonymous, pear-to-pear way of achieving trust.
Blockchain has already disrupted centralized financial systems but the real revolution is still at the beginning.
