Most content continues to be published on platforms from few monolithic companies. And the services that we all use are also dominated by the same mega sized corporations.
Despite perhaps their intentions, this gives these large companies a significant amount of power, impacting the shape of society at large. This ultimately centralizes power - influence, censorship, wealth distribution, innovation.
This needs to change. Internet use desperately needs to begin shifting away from the centralization of power to a decentralizd and distributed model.
When I first became interested in cryptocurrency, there weren't many decentralized apps. I can name a few - Bitcoin being one of them.
Fast forward a handful of years and now there are. And with them, growing user communities. Apps like Steemit, LBRY, Minds, for example providing content publishing capabilities. Social networking on Mastodon and Peepeth. Storj and Filecoin for decentralized cloud storage.
Even at the ISP layer, there is an evolving landscape of decentralized internet. Althea and others providing the starting ground for incentivized mesh networks.
And all of these platforms provide incentives for users to participate as not only consumers but for taking stake as owners and supporters.
The recent YT crypto takedown has driven quite a few content producers to other platforms and many of them, with their crypto affiliations, have turned to decentralized alternatives.
But there is still a lot of work to be done. Mass adoption of decentralized app alternatives to common internet services won't happen until some fundamental roadblocks are removed. Cryptocurrency accessibility continues to be a problem. Scams, fraud and exploitation continue to plague blockchain legitimacy. Tribalism in the space continues to challenge innovation.
And eventually as decentralized apps gain more popularity, expect the large corporations to push back in full force, including taking advantage of their positions of government influence.
But these decentralized apps will continue to be created. Despite the challenges, their decentralized nature mean they will be hard to stop.
What do you think are some of the better decentralized apps out there? What do you think are the biggest roadblocks to more widespread adoption of them?
