Blockchain technology is all about distributed ledgers and decentralization as a whole. We are all backing a system that is in no need of trust-based actions, as everything is fixed in computation and algorithms. It's a peer two revolutions and everyone's hopping on board. So far so good right? Nothing can stop this movement towards every direction possible. But there is one single point of failure that looms over all of this ambition. The internet. As it stands right now, if the internet stops, so does the functionality of blockchain. You could say that this counts for other things as well, like electricity in general, and you would be right. But today I decided to focus on the internet, go figure.
The problem I personally see is that the internet itself is not fully decentralized. Well, not the mainstream above water part at least. We're not going into the deep web discussions today, because that's a whole other story. But that mainstream part that everyone uses has some centralized aspects to it that ensure its functioning. DNS servers are an example of that.
This means that theoretically someone with the right amount of power can control this. But then I question myself if such a scenario is realistic at all. If someone were to "kill" our digital and virtual highways, there would certainly be chaos all over the world. For a while.... and then someone would come up with an alternative.
In many ways there are already alternatives on the rise. One I particularly like is project Helium, which may not be there just yet, but is certainly pointing in the right direction.
The movers are already busy with the decentralized internet. And the adopters of blockchain will play a significant role in this. Not just because of support, but also because a concept that was previously just a weird thing to buy two pizzas with is now an actual presence to be mindful of. At this point the decentralized internet is not a question of if anymore, but rather when..
