What is a “Decentralized” Internet, and why should I care?
The Skycoin Project is building the infrastructure for a completely decentralized Internet. Here’s why that matters.
Maybe you’ve read about a decentralized internet on websites or social media, or maybe you heard about it on a TV show like Silicon Valley.
Or perhaps you’ve heard some of your nerdier friends talk about the importance of preserving net neutrality. The only reason net neutrality is a battleground (and Internet Service Providers are lobbying to take it away) is because with our current centralized Internet, these gatekeepers can control our access and throttle the speed of those who can’t or won’t pay more.
To understand why we need to have a decentralized internet, it’s important to understand how our current Internet became centralized, and why it betrays the spirit with which the Internet was created.
The Internet was intended to be a place where information could be exchanged freely. But as the Internet grew, Governments, advertisers, and ISPs became less inclined to allow people that level of freedom and autonomy on the Internet, especially when so much money could be made harvesting your data, building detailed profiles of you and your Internet habits, and selling your private data to the highest bidders. They took advantage of inherent flaws in the way the Internet was built, and the technical shortcomings of the protocols that underpin its functions.
This kind of egregious chicanery is possible now because we have no choice. Access to the Internet is controlled by huge centralized corporations and in some cases, virtual-monopolies, that are able to charge any price for wildly varying levels of service, and who provide that service on condition that you consent to be tracked and monitored as you go about your business online. Most people accept these terms of service unknowingly, or worse, they naïvely trust that their favourite platform has their best interests at heart.
Likewise, don’t forget that there are many countries in the world that still don’t even have affordable or reliable access to the Internet. Even the protocol on which the current Internet runs, TCP/IP, is inefficient and outdated; invented over four decades ago without any idea of what we would need from a communications protocol in the 21st Century. It’s holding back the tide of innovation while facilitating the intractable privacy disaster in which we find ourselves, and there’s really only one way forward.
A new, decentralized Internet is inevitable, as governments and corporations try desperately to control a technology that was never intended to be controlled. As the Internet further Balkanizes into smaller fragments and walled gardens, we need to find a way out before it’s too late. Decentralization will effectively take away the means by which those governments and corporations are exerting their control, and furthermore, if it’s built correctly, will make it technologically impossible for that kind of censorship or surveillance to ever happen again.
The technological revolution that accompanied the invention of the blockchain has made the prospect of a truly decentralized internet a possibility again. An internet free from censorship or surveillance, where anyone could join without having to deal with Internet Service Providers, and indeed, where access was so open and inexpensive, people could log on at a fraction of what they might pay now. The Internet can finally be a genuine resource held in common, owned collectively with no gatekeepers or nanny states. Where we can be free from oppressive governments, firewalls, geographic access restrictions, and where the fastest possible connections are available, without throttling, to everyone regardless of location or socioeconomic status.
For the better part of a decade, Skycoin has been literally building that Internet, piece by piece, from the hardware to the underlying software and more. It’s called Skywire, and there are already nearly 10,000 nodes, or entry points, online around the globe, with more coming online every day. (For reference, that’s more nodes than are operated by the TOR project.) Skywire is faster and more secure than the current Internet, with all traffic encrypted end-to-end, which makes tracking or spying not just impractical, but impossible.
Skycoin itself is unique in the cryptocurrency space, as it is one of the few currencies that is tied to physical, real-world commodities. In this case, it is the Skyminers and their Skywire antennas, which form the hardware infrastructure of Skywire.
Skycoin automatically generates a parallel currency, called Coin Hours, which in turn are used as fuel to make transactions on the Skycoin blockchain virtually free. Coin Hours will be the means with which to purchase services and bandwidth on Skywire. The cost to access Skywire will represent a tiny fraction of the cost ISPs currently charge for inferior service. And, since Coin Hours are automatically generated just by owning Skycoin, there’s a good chance that with just a little Skycoin in your wallet, you’ll never have to pay a dime for Internet access again.
Those automatic micropayments of Coin Hours will go to regular people like you and me who operate Skyminers, which turn those who own them into literal ISPs for their community. Skyminers are the backbone of Skywire, and Coin Hours will serve as an economic incentive for those people to offer that valuable service to the network.
With antennas attached to Skyminers, Skywire becomes a global wireless mesh network, which is amazing and cool, and among other things means that it is effectively indestructible. And since it will replace the slow, outdated TCP/IP with hyper-efficient MPLS, or “Multi-protocol Label Switching”, it will be faster and more efficient as well.
Think of it this way: TCP/IP is like the mail system. Letters get put in mail boxes then examined and sorted at a central facility, and then delivered to their destination. MPLS is like that but without the middle-man of a postal service or an inefficient sorting facility. Your letter speeds its way to its destination using the absolute fastest and most direct route. That’s the power of decentralization plus a modern communications protocol.
People will not have to choose between the current Internet and Skywire. The legacy internet we tolerate now will continue to be available of course, staying right where it is, and it can be accessed on Skywire through a browser just like it is today. It will continue to be plagued by all the inherent problems from which it currently suffers, which suggests that as Skywire continues to grow in size and popularity, many websites will likely opt to take advantage of the privacy and cost savings of the new decentralized Skywire internet, (not to mention the security of military-grade encryption) and they will move their sites and services over.
Companies who currently earn their money spying on everything you do or selling your private data will have to find another business model if they wish to join the rest of us on Skywire. Otherwise, they will likely stay where they are, banking on apathy and ignorance to keep people visiting their rickety old platforms even after their Faustian bargains and craven business models have been exposed. With any luck or justice, they may not last long.
Skycoin is the engine that is building the next generation web: a free, decentralized Internet that is better in every conceivable way than the one you’re reading this article on. The infrastructure for Skywire is already out there, right now, today, in the world, and it’s growing fast. You can be a part of it by buying a Skyminer to help further build the infrastructure of Skywire, and get paid day and night for your service. With a Skyminer, YOU are the literally ISP for your community.
Or buy some Skycoin and start accumulating the Coin Hours that will get you onto Skywire when it comes to your community. With nearly 10,000 nodes and counting, it might already be there!
The promise of a truly decentralized Internet is not “coming soon”; it’s already here. Help take the Internet back from the ISPs, governments, and greedy corporations, and let’s realize the vision of what the Internet was always meant to be: a decentralized and democratic network of connections that will take us into the next century and beyond. Visit skycoin.net to find out more. Welcome aboard!
If you liked my writing and would like to contribute to me making more feel free to donate some Skycoin: GCB5KK9LmJzxxxh2hMoKm3HRXwaJe9vRfd
