Editors Note: This article comes fromChain News ChainNewsEditors Note: This article comes from
Chain News ChainNews
(ID: chainnewscom), author: Chris Dixon, general partner of a16z crypto, a venture capitalist focusing on blockchain technology and other technology fields, compiled by Perry Wang, published with authorization.
Before the start of the Spring Festival holiday, many people discussed how to explain what blockchain is to their parents. In fact, before explaining blockchain to anyone, we need to figure out why we should believe that blockchain technology will change the world.
As the Lunar New Year holiday draws to a close, it’s time to read this short but profound article recently written by a16z crypto general partner Chris Dixon for Wired. This article explained a truth in plain language: why blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will be a great driving force to change the future direction of the Internet world.
Millions of users have experienced the pain of personal data being abused or stolen. Those creative workers and creative companies that rely on Internet platforms have also encountered sudden changes in platform rules, making their audiences and works profitable overnight. reduced to nothing. Now, finally, there is a growing social movement, experimenting with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to create entirely new Internet services.
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a16z crypto partner, blockchain investor Chris Dixon
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Internet Changes: From Open Protocols to Giant Monopoly
Recall that from the 1980s to the early 2000s, mainstream Internet services were built on open protocols controlled by the Internet community. For example, the domain name resolution system DNS, known as the phone book of the Internet world, is controlled by a distributed network composed of individuals and organizations. It adopts openly created and managed rules, allowing any individual or organization that follows community standards to Owning a domain name gives you a place in the Internet world. It also means that the companies that run the web and e-mail services are scrutinized, and if they misbehave, users can transfer their domain names to other service providers.
But, from the mid-2000s to the present, Internet users trust in open protocols has been traded for trust in corporate management teams. Companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook built software and services beyond the capabilities of open protocols, and users flocked to these more elegantly designed platforms.
How do social networks decide to approve or block a user? How do search engines determine website rankings? Social media can foster media outlets and small businesses one minute, and sideline their content or change revenue-sharing models the next. The enormous power of these platform giants has created widespread social tensions, sparking heated debates over fake news, trolls, privacy laws, and algorithmic bias.
Thats why social thought is turning again to embrace Internet services controlled by open rules and communities. These ideas have finally become possible recently. Specifically, thanks to technological innovations fueled by the rise of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
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Blockchain brings the possibility of breaking the monopoly of Internet giants
Blockchain has become a hot topic in the past few years. Despite the hype, people still dont know much about it.
This means that control of a blockchain computer can be safely entrusted to a community of many people.
On the other hand, Internet users who rely on the control of Internet giants have to face many unpleasant hegemonic behaviors, such as their data being stolen or abused, various privacy rules changing, and they are still being controlled. Advertising harassment. The networks dominated by these Internet giants could suddenly change the rules for developers and businesses, just as Facebook caused an uproar over social game company Zynga, or Google changed the rules of Yelp, the largest US review site.
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Open source software has become a reality
In the 1990s, closed-source, corporate-owned software dominated computing, most notably Microsofts Windows operating system. Today, billions of Android phones run the open source operating system. Much of what runs on Apple computers or mobile phones is also open source software, and almost all current cloud data centers, including Amazons cloud services, are also based on open source software.
Most recently, Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire Github, a hosting platform for open source and proprietary software projects, and IBM spent $34 billion to acquire open source solutions provider Red Hat. These two blockbuster deals underscore the enormous clout that heavyweight open source projects can have.
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From Dont be evil to Cant be evil
With the growing importance of open source software, technology companies have begun to shift their business models from selling software to providing cloud services. Look at Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix, they are all service businesses now, and even Microsoft has basically become a service business. Through such moves, they have outgrown open-source software companies and continued to control critical Internet infrastructure.
A core of blockchain design is: by introducing financial incentives in the open source model, it can surpass the previous open source software model and further expand to the cloud service model. The currency or tokens issued on the blockchain network provide incentives for individuals and organizations participating in the maintenance and service of the blockchain, allowing them to maintain the blockchain network and continue to provide services.
It may sound like a science fiction scenario, but it is true that blockchain and cryptocurrencies will bring to the world of cloud services what open source software did to traditional software.
