The State of “Decentralized Internet”
Ever look for a recipe online and every single one you find has some thousand-word story about how the author’s mee-maw used to make “chicken n’ dumplings” before getting to the actual recipe? Nobody cares about your mee-maw, so why the damn story? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. This means, in order for Google to find your article, you need to include Keywords. Have enough Keywords in an article, Google’s crawlers can find it, and you split the payment from whatever company’s ad is seen on your website, you keep 68% (of maybe 2 cents) if the viewer even click the ad. Mainstream and indie news outlets have lowered themselves to publishing clickbait, outrage articles, and pushing conspiratorial hysteria because they need the income. This system, under a near-monopoly by Google, as well as privacy and free-speech concerns, have led to the development of several “decentralized web” platforms.
There are different ideas of what it means to “decentralize.” Some projects seek to replace the current ad-revenue model of website monetization. However, those systems are still reliant on web hosts/servers and ISPs (internet service providers). A true “decentralized internet” would preferably weaken those centers of power. How close are we?
Substratum:
Substratum is a network in which users running “Nodes” transmit data between web visitors and websites. Nodes replace servers, and web publishers pay only for the data they transmit in microtransactions with Substratum Token. This eliminates the need for web hosting, web servers, and advertisements, encrypts data (no need for VPN or Tor) and eliminates censorship. It still relies on traditional ISPSTATUS: Still in Beta, no way for nodes to earn Substratum tokens. They are way behind on delivering their project. The value of the token has dropped 19,000 SATS since its all time high, which may explain the delay. They need a fiat entry to purchase tokens, otherwise all nodes and publishers will have to exchange their tokens for Bitcoin, then sell for USD on a separate platform.
BRAVE Browser/Basic Attention Token:
Brave Browser has taken aim at both the ad-revenue system and the data harvesting issue. It blocks ads and trackers brilliantly, and gives the user the option to distribute BAT (Basic Attention Token) to their favorite publishers, and anyone with a site can sign up to accept BAT payments. If users want to see ads, they will also be paid in BAT; ads will still exist, but users have the choice whether they see them or not. It doesn’t solve the problems of web-hosting/servers or ISP challenges, but is capable of working with other projects that take aim at those problems.
STATUS: Brave has the best computer and mobile browser available, and you should be using it. Getting paid for opting to see ads isn’t available yet, and there’s still the challenge of exchanging BAT which can be done on Coinbase, but Coinbase has deplatformed people.
ZERONET:
This is a peer-to-peer (distributed) web-hosting network where users can create websites that have cryptographic keys instead of IP addresses. The network by nature is immune to censorship and even DMCA notices as long as there are users “seeding” the site. The tokenized payment system uses NAMECOIN
STATUS: Zeronet has seen slow adoption as it’s websites are limited initially to 10mb and can only be scripted in CSS, Java and HTML. Not a lot of hope of mainstream adoption.
DECENTRALIZED ISPs:
There are several startups in this realm. Instead of each house on a block having their own account with an ISP, a distributed network run on a blockchain can run through a series of WiFi routers in the neighborhood that provides internet service to each person who opts in. In theory, they pay a monthly fee to a neighborhood Gateway (someone with a wholesale internet service from an existing ISP). Theoretically, this limits existing ISP behemoths to wholesalers and makes Gateway distributors small business owners.
STATUS: The investment for the Gateway is risky, as they’ll have to have their service functional to then go sell around their neighborhood, more expensive if they re-sell the hardware. If the wholesale service or gateway hardware goes out, expect everyone in your neighborhood to hit you up. This business model would work for a business that can afford to source technicians and customer service. On top of that, big ISPs could deny wholesale accounts for this purpose as it would directly affect their profits. These projects are essentially designed by anarcho-communist-leaning individuals who don’t think through these problems and assume people love being involved in their community.
EOS/TRON: I’m not touching these.
METANET:
nChain’s Metanet entered the market a year after the ICO bubble in which several “web 3.0” projects seemed to have momentum before losing steam as the market tanked. Metanet’s vision is the entirety of the internet and banking to be run on the original model of the Bitcoin Network under the post-fork-of-a-fork name of Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision). Instead of the ad-based monetization, all data will have monetary value of which most will be microtransactions. Unlike other projects, there is an actual roadmap of enterprise services, merchant services, a smart credit card, and patents for digital rights management and “personal device security.” Their goal is to have one monetary system powering the internet, monetizing everything from blog posts to memes, from songs to movies.
STATUS: With Craig S. Wright and other developers’ supposed ability to finance their project by selling Bitcoin Core, they have a lot of momentum. They claim to be consistently mining all 64 megabyte blocks and several 128mb blocks per day (the original fork of Bitcoin was over methods of scaling, and so was Bitcoin SV’s fork from BCH). However, Craig S. Wright is hated by proponents of Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash, and his promises to “take Bitcoin to zero” has essentially put him in opposition to anyone in crypto for profit. That portion of the public won’t flip to Bitcoin SV or Metanet until it moves up in market cap, which Wright doesn’t care about. From what it seems, Metanet and Bitcoin SV will move forward with or without market support. It’s worth watching his Twitter any time Bitcoin’s price is dropping, and it will be interesting to see if his predictions of regulations coming down hard on “Shitcoins.”
If anything is to blame on the delay in decentralized internet development, it was the ICO boom of 2017. Countless teams of developers barely out of college (some still in it) made millions selling Initial Coin Offerings to their blockchain products. Then, groups of developers suddenly had millions of dollars and no business, product, or project management skills. Wading through “Web 3.0” blockchains and trying to figure out where they are in development is like looking through a Dotcom bubble graveyard. Substratum was one of the most promising products, but instead of getting the project delivered, they introduced a second ICO for a “decentralized exchange.”
Metanet seems to be the only decentralized web project showing signs of momentum in the crypto bear market, probably due to the fact that instead of relying on ICO funding, it’s been financed by selling Bitcoin. Instead of a team of new developers, it has veterans of Bitcoin. Whatever your beef with Craig or Bitcoin SV, Metanet and other projects on the SV blockchain have a better shot than Zeronet or Substratum in establishing an open decentralized internet that would leave ad-based and monopoly plagued internet in the past. It will be an interesting year seeing where these projects go.
