Some of the major tech advancements we have looming on the horizon — Web3 and cryptocurrency come first to mind — are built upon a central thesis: the internet would be a much better place if data was decentralized and big institutions did not have as much of the power in controlling the playing field.
I do think moving towards a more decentralized structure in the digital world would alleviate a lot of the issues with the current internet, such as troublesome data mining, dubious privacy practices, expensive middle men, and overwhelmingly powerful Big Tech companies. But I question whether or not the average consumer actually wants this change.
Let me fire back with my own central thesis: the average consumer is lazy. They don't want to have to think very hard about how they are conducting their digital lives, myself included. I think most people will always sacrifice a bit of privacy or digital freedom for a load more inconvenience. We don't like that Google snoops around in our Gmail and has access to our entire browsing history, but we tolerate it because the services they offer us as a result are too convenient to turn down (and some people even enjoy the targeted ads...). We don't like that Venmo is a weird middle-man between someone giving you money and you getting that money into your bank account, but we tolerate it because the system is just so dang convenient and accessible to use.
I will grant to the Web3 bulls and crypto bros that both of these systems are categorically "better technologies" in the sense that they solve a lot of the problems with the current technologies without sacrificing much (if any) actual functionality. But I just don't believe this thesis that people hate tech institutions so much that they will sacrifice the convenience these controlling bodies offer for the freedom of decentralization. People don't want to use an internet built entirely upon complex protocols. They want to use an internet where corporations repackage these complex protocols in user-friendly ways, and that will always create a natural gravity back towards the internet as we know it today. People like the convenience and efficiency that comes with outsourcing half of your digital life to a single Big Tech company, who can then cater its services, offerings, and content to fit your exact needs.
It's sad but probably true.
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