Where will Steem be in 10 years?
It is easy to get caught up in what is taking place right now. This also can lead to a big of negativity if things are not going as planned. Delays and setbacks can be discouraging. In our realm, the drop in coin pricing really was a setback for many.
In spite of it all, I remain ultra optimistic about this platform and the industry in general. Why is that? How can I write stuff each day that puts a positive tone on Steem when there are obvious issues?
My reasoning is simple: I am not dwelling on today. Instead, I look at 5-7 years. In this article, I rounded it to a decade for conversation sake.
So where will Steem be in a decade?
The honest answer is we cannot even begin to answer that. You might think that a decade isn't that long and we should have some idea what will take place. Instead, I find that as we keep moving further into the digital realm, it gets more difficult to project the future. What use to take 10 years now happens in 3.
We are about to embark upon an up cycle in technological development. The last 20 years were fairly flat. Outside the mobile phone (smartphone) there was little that seriously altered society. Instead, we witnessed an evolutionary move ahead. Processors got faster; memory less expensive; software more powerful. Nevertheless, the overall picture is still the same.
That is about to change. To start, we are moving into quantum. Now I realize we will not see full quantum computing for a while, most likely more than the decade out. What we are seeing is quantum principles being applied. This is affecting things such as materials, nanotechnology and bots.
VR and AR are also technologies that are poised for breakthroughs. This is going to have implications on how people access information and how entertainment is arranged.
A decade is a long time.
Steem is going to be a blockchain that will be around in a decade because of the foundation being laid today. What is developed today is going to be built upon. Since we are dealing with a great deal of open source work, the ability to expand rapidly is great. Applications can build upon each other fostering in a new era of innovation. We are moving away from the slow moving, centrally controlled advancements.
During the last technological "golden age", the 1990s, we saw the Internet come to life. As a comparison, just consider what it was like in 1995 or 1996. Do you think those people could envision social media a decade later? The idea of having the Internet on a phone was also science fiction to them. Both those happened in roughly a decade from that point.
Steem is about "tokenizing the Internet". Most of us on here understand the concept of tokenization. We are very familiar with that process. What we do not understand is the Internet. Sure, we know what it is today. The challenge with that is we are seeing the introduction of Web 3.0. While we can surmise that we know what is coming, the truth is we cannot comprehend what breakthroughs are going to happen.
Just like the Internet user in 1995 was clueless to what I just mentioned, there are "sci-fi" ideas today which will be part of our everyday use in the late 2020s.
The present Internet is not working. It is part of the old realm which served it's purpose yet it is time to move on. We evolved passed it to the point we need something new. The digital realm offers limitless possibilities. Unfortunately, we are stuck in a system where the options for most are rather limited.
Steem is setting out to change that. Since the Internet is going to be ubiquitous, it will be like electricity. In other words, this is something that is going to be a central part of everyone's life. Steem is positioned to be a player in that realm. Is it going to be the only one? Certainly not. We are moving away from monopolies. There will be millions of platforms out there doing all kinds of different things. Today, we have signals everywhere. As I travel around, I bounce from wi-fi to wi-fi through my cable company. When a signal is not available, I am on the cellular service.
Blockchains will be similar. Essentially, they transfer and store data. This is vital since the world is generating a lot more of it. This is not destined to slow down anytime soon. This means that networks such as Steem are going to be more important as we move forward. The need for something that is borderless, open, decentralized, and not controlled by any one government or entity is only going to grow.
As for what will be on top of this, I can only guess. There will be a lot of AR and VR. We will hundreds of applications that are used in our daily lives, many which run in the background. I expect the Steem blockchain will be filled with automation (along with the rest of the world). We will see nano payments. Forget micropayments for a cup of coffee. We are going to see a payment of .001 STEEM for 7 minutes of insurance. Blockchain will alter how we interact with time.
Try to keep some of this in mind as we move forward. There are going to be setbacks and frustration. This is a part of development. Nothing in nature is a straight line. The ascension of Steem is the same. We will bounce around having our good moments along with the not-so-good.
Nevertheless, we are going to see a very powerful system in a decade. What we will be doing on the Steem blockchain is going to blow our minds.
It is going to happen.
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