With crypto and the favored decentralized aspect of many coins and tokens people seem to often talk about decentralization as if it the savior of humanity and it will make us all rich, which can't be the case.
I understand there is always the aspect of selling an idea, when you have an idea or a platform and you want to push it you have to focus on what is good about it and how it can benefit 'X' amount of people, however I really think more people should talk realistically about decentralization which means talking about its flaws.
Arab spring:
I would like to use the example of governments being overthrown in recent history as it seems pretty close to decentralization, in the sense it is a break down of power and a re-shuffle.
If we take our minds back to 2011 during the 'Arab spring' where the leaders of many middle easy and African countries were over thrown.
Leading up to the leaders being overthrown there were many different protest, violent and non-violent, coups, civil wars and so on. So many different groups all fighting together to overthrow a leader. Now look at every country that was involved in the 'Arab spring' and you will find they are still full of unrest and shaky leadership.
To avoid getting stuck on the complex situation of the 'Arab spring' I will move on to explain why I used this example. In each of the involved countries after the leaders were taken out of power there was an instant power vacuum where many different groups tried to get into the position of power and that unrest still continues today.
Similarly decentralization is also a re-shuffle of power, take power away from the government and spread it out between whoever is there to take it. Currently we are in the process of taking that power away from governments as decentralized blockchains are building better systems than what the government has so people no longer have the need for the government version.
The people are now fighting to get their product at the head of the cue to take some of this power, fighting away other similar ideas so that theirs prevails.
To me the same outline fits for the 'Arab spring' and the decentralization movement, one just has less violence.
What is different?
What is it that makes the decentralized products so much better than the previous system, if we fully take away governments we would just in place have industries completely run by one coin controlled by the coins creator. A landscape where rather than one main powerful organization you get a powerful organization that takes an industry.
Which would end with say a company that controls travel, another that takes the place of banks, another that runs agriculture and so on. Rather than one main power lots of smaller powers. Which I don't really see as any different rather than everything being run by one group we have each area ran by a group, it does not solve the issue of the power struggle the divide between rich and poor it just gives the opportunity for the current powers to be replaced.
For example steemit is decentralized, a seemingly friendly constructive place where everyone can share opinions until @ned decides otherwise, because someone still has to have the power and in this case it is @ned. If @ned wants he can get rid of steemit or change it entirely, I mean tomorrow he could take all steem tokens and SBD on steemit sell it all an go buy a tropical island, now I don't think he would as he seems to be a pretty genuine person but you never know.
Thank you OP. Not many people realize that the Arab Spring did in fact pave the way to militant and terrorist organizations to emerge. In a power vacuum, away from the old status quo, what I think we need to ensure is to have a solution at hand and not just blindly change things. Otherwise chaos spreads and an otherwise healthy and moral solution becomes a living nightmare (think about Gauche Caviar and the real communist experience Eastern Europe had to endure for almost half a century due to Marxist ideals interpreted).
well said, it seems to be a situation where the excitement and buzz of change and progress is partially blinding people of the reality of the situation we have at hand.
As for having a system in place to help from having a crazy power vacuum it is something I don't have a solution for but I will definitely be thinking of ways we can help steady the change and I hope other people will be doing so along side me.