Can Blockchain Technology Create A More Equitable Tech Industry?
Many believe that blockchain technology will overrun the tech giants, breaking up the internet services market that is increasingly controlled by only a few big companies. While it’s right to be optimistic, it would also be foolish to blindly believe that blockchain is a silver bullet. The blockchain industry itself, and cryptocurrency more specifically, could very well be moving towards consolidation. While the new technology may totally disrupt the internet as we know it now, it could very well mimic the same cycle as the dot-com craze of the 1990’s. This would only perpetuating the typical industry’s consolidation lifecycle, giving rise to another set of corporate giants to replace the FAMGA monopoly that currently controls most of the internet services market.
Any technology has the potential to disrupt economic activity. New inventions create new products and services, as well as new processes by which businesses get things done. For starters, blockchain technology may revolutionize the way companies advertise. Now, companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon monitor our search inquires. Based on our inquiries, these companies target specific advertisements for products and services. This process has become increasing profitable. Social media outlets — and just about any other tech company that can get their hands on it — capture, store, mine, and even sell our data. In fact, advertising accounted for almost $27 billion of Facebook’s revenue in 2016, and in 2017, Google’s advertising campaigns contributed over 70 percent of its revenues.
Some people believe that these marketing methods are ethically questionable. The capture, storage, and sale of our private data can invade our privacy, but doing so is so extremely lucrative that these privacy concerns are often dismissed as just a cost of doing business. The blockchain, however, offers robust privacy protections. As a result, the increasing integration of blockchain technology in advertising may eliminate the trade-off between privacy and profitability in our online data.
Blockchain technology returns control to the individual, providing them with the ability to grant or deny access to companies before they’re able to capture their data. It can also allow individuals to store and sell their data themselves. Moreover, companies could pay users in cryptocurrency in exchange for viewing their advertisements. This system would not only apply to social media usage. It could also extend to search engines and even email.
Blockchain is overhauling the way tech companies interact with their customers. Blockchain serves to protect the user by returning to us control over our privacy, something many of us have unwittingly ceded to Facebook, Google, Amazon, or others. Currently, tech giants profit most from their ability to accumulate and sell our data to third-party marketers. Big tech’s control over consumers, however, is diminished by putting consumers back in control over their data.
Blockchain technology is a groundbreaking new innovation. However, because it is so new, there is no telling how it will ultimately impact the internet services market. Some fear that blockchain is on a path towards centralization, thus perpetuating the domination these entities have over us. For starters, Facebook, which has a history of absorbing start-up companies, has recently begun exploring the possibility of buying blockchain startups. This would perpetuate the consolidation lifecycle, further strengthening the FAMGA monopoly’s stranglehold on the market. This could be devastating, particularly in light of the fact that Facebook’s revenue stream revolves around its ability to capture and sell our data.
Blockchain technology is good business, and big companies are starting to catch on. Even financial institutions are beginning to profit from cryptocurrency. Big companies have every incentive to cash in on the blockchain revolution, and the only thing preventing them is the up-and-coming companies that are breaking up the FAMGA monopoly. Halo Platform is just the type of innovative, lean new company that threatens the corporate giants of the tech world with market disruption.
Halo Platform is building a cryptocurrency platform that is useful for everyone. Our goal is to make blockchain technology and cryptocurrency something that all of us use in our daily lives, just like search engines and social media today. By offering a unique new way to interact with people and services online, Halo Platform is playing an important role in the growing blockchain revolution.
