2019-1-5 20:54 |
Blockchain Can Help Individuals Control Their Privacy And Take Power Away From Corporations
During the last dozens of years, the internet evolved and allowed multinational corporations to increase their presence in the market. During these years, companies were able to take control of users’ data and privacy. Corporations were able to sell and misuse his data damaging people around the world that trusted these services.
Hacks and other issues have also threatened users’ privacy and rule changes have affected content creators. However, blockchain technology and virtual currencies could help change these things.
According to a recent article uploaded by Wired, internet services between 1980 and 2000 were built on open protocols that the internet community was able to control. The article mentions the Domain Name System that is controlled by a distributed network of people and organizations.
From the 2000s until now, these open protocols were replaced by trust in companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook. The reason for this change is that the firms were able to build services that surpassed the capabilities of open protocols.
In general, blockchain has been discussed and hyped but just a few individuals and experts understand how it works. Blockchain can offer strong trust guarantees based on mathematics and game-theoretic properties of the system. If there is a code created by a developer, this code will continue to run even if the opinion of the participants affected by this code changes.
Proprietary platforms work in a substantially different way. Users have to be worried about data being stolen or privacy policies changing. Companies must be always ready to change their businesses in case one of these firms controlling a network change the rules.
The author of the article says that the open source model can be extended beyond software to cloud-based services by adding financial incentives to the mix. Cryptocurrencies are a way created to incentivize individuals and groups to participate in maintain and build services.
The article reads as follows:
“The idea that an internet service could have an associated coin or token may be a novel concept, but the blockchain and cryptocurrencies can do for cloud-based services what open source did for software.”
It could take several years for open source software to supplant proprietary services. However, the benefits of this change would be immense. Instead in users trusting corporations they can trust community-owned software.
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