The blockchain will not change the internet drastically, society might
With this video going viral, showing a “crypto expert” explaining the blockchain to congress, I thought it is time to address some misconceptions. If you have watched the video, you might be thinking: “Wow, that sounds great! Like a more democratic internet and society!”.
The option for more democracy however is here today and does not require the blockchain.
Yes, you read that right, we can have that now.
In this article, I would like to tackle some of the proclaimed “benefits” and why I believe, the “blockchain” will not really help here. I will not go too much into the technical details of the different blockchain implementations. Others have done that enough already. Instead, I will take a more general stand.
“Blockchain allows everyone, to run the underlying infrastructure of the internet and get rewarded for doing so”
The idea explained is fairly simple: currently, lot’s of content is run in a more centralised way, than the founders of the internet imagined. Photos are hosted on Instagram (Meta), articles and opinions on Facebook (Meta), Chats are done via WhatsApp (Meta), Mail is hosted on Gmail (Google), Videos are posted to YouTube (Google) etc.
With the blockchain, that content would be moved into a more de-central system. The hosting power for that would come from us, the users. We would offer our computers, laptops, etc. and allow others to work on these. When doing so, we would get coins that we could use for payments.
This is more or less, how Bitcoin works. The users run the necessary protocols to keep the network alive and therefore get rewarded. This process is called mining.
However, there are quite a few challenges with that:
The blockchain does not run independently from the centralised infrastructure
Instead, it runs on the internet we all know. It still requires an internet connection and a provider. The provider can still control what you are doing, governments can block access to the blockchain and much more. Essentially, just like the internet today.
Your computer could be utilised for fraud and illegal content
As you offer your infrastructure to people you do not know, you have little control over their activities on your laptop. People might upload illegal files and in the end, you might be even liable. (At least in Germany, hosting e.g. even just an open WiFi network, might make you liable for the activities conducted via the same). In fact, that is a problem with today’s Bitcoin blockchain already as pointed out by the RWTH Aachen University.
Not to forget: as the ledger is immutable, getting rid of that illegal content is not so easy. Depending on where you are, just mining bitcoin might make you by now liable for legal claims.
You can participate in a democratic internet already today without a blockchain
As rightly pointed out, much of our content is hosted these days by internet giants and that comes with certain problems. Photos are stored on Instagram, videos on YouTube, Conversations on Facebook & WhatsApp.
However, that is not done that way for technological reasons. The internet is built in a way that would allow every one of us to do that in a de-centralised way. The only challenge keeping us away from doing so is often a lack of knowledge or social pressure.
Here are some ideas, how you could take a bit of power away from Google and Facebook and make the internet more decentralised yourself:
- Host your pictures and videos on your own small webpage
- Open a small forum, instead of a Facebook group when discussing with friends
- Utilise Jabber and host your own instance instead of using WhatsApp
- Publish your articles on your own blog, instead of Facebook/ Medium
- Host your own e-Mail Server instead of using Gmail
Of course, all of the above is slightly more difficult than just signing up for one of the mentioned services. All of the above will make you most likely liable in some way. However, that is part of the deal with democracy and no technology will change that. You have to have some sort of skin in the game, to participate.
I strongly believe that the blockchain technology will not make the internet more democratic. However. we as a society might, by sharing the knowledge of how to participate in the internet and making the entry hurdles as easy as possible
It depends on us, not the technology we are using.
