This is my particular approach to the topic and is part of the t2 x Kiwi writing contest.
We all know that social networks have had a significant impact on the entire planet, well, much of the world, I still have uncles who don't even have Facebook, to name the most basic. Social networks have allowed us to break the physical borders that separate us and have managed to unite the whole world, thanks to the power of the internet; through them, we can know, from our home in Patagonia, that the cat of a citizen (who we do not know) who lives in Japan, has woken him up by giving him a bite. It seems silly, but apparently, the current trend in social networks is entertainment. Some might say that they are useful for learning, serve as a teaching tool, etc. However, we agree that it is an effective means of communication. It can bring down even governmental regimes, for example, the event in the Tahrir Square Protests in Egypt in 2011, where the mass protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo were driven and organized through social networks. The images and videos of the protests that were disseminated through social networks helped to give international visibility to the movement and generate solidarity and support globally. Eventually, the Mubarak regime was overthrown, highlighting the role of social networks in mobilizing and organizing large-scale protest movements in the real world. This event demonstrated the power of digital platforms to facilitate collective action and political change.
The disruptive technology of Bitcoin emerges
Later in the future, the rise of Bitcoin, brought a new concept into our lives, cryptocurrencies, or what we know today as digital money. Based on the concept of a digital ledger protected by cryptography or what its developers called Blockchain. A chain of blocks of information distributed and replicated in the network of networks, known as the Internet. Its distributed philosophy is what allows this information to be "indestructible", "secure" and "unalterable", thanks to the fact that the information is replicated in millions of Internet nodes. In this concept, we can see that the information is not stored or "centralized" in a single place, since it is practically distributed in many parts or what we call "decentralized". A revolutionary idea that would make it possible to keep cryptocurrency information constantly "alive", avoiding attacks or network crashes.
This same concept was applied to the social networking approach, giving rise to decentralized platforms, called web3.
The control of conventional social networks
But before going into detail about decentralized social networks, there is something else to emphasize about the social networks we use every day, and that is that their content is stored in one place. It is well known that known social networks such as Facebook, Twitter (now called X), TikTok, and YouTube are centralized networks, what does this mean? that they are not only in one place but are also controlled by one entity or company. Despite having a network of geographically distributed servers (CDNs) to deliver their content instantly anywhere in the world, they suffer from cyber-attacks that make their service inaccessible. And then, we say that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. are down. Therefore, you will not be able to access your content nor will you be able to see the content of other users. Which is a big disadvantage.
This is where decentralized social networks shine, as your content is distributed and replicated on the chain of blocks or Blockchain, so it is almost impossible for you to not be able to stop seeing your content.
Another advantage of decentralized social networks is that your content belongs to you. Unlike conventional social networks, where it is not a matter of if but rather when your content will be deleted and the worst part is that you will not be able to do anything about it. In addition, your photos and videos also belong to them. By the way, have you ever tried to get rid of your photos on Facebook? Difficult, isn't it?
And if your content is not appropriate or for some reason (political, social, economic or moral) they consider it inappropriate, it will also be deleted and possibly your account will be deleted as well.
In this way, both your content and your privacy are no longer yours, they can do with your information as they wish. And even worse, through it, control what you see. Has it happened to you that you made a comment about Japan and now everything that appears on your social networks talks about Japan?
Here we also see another advantage of decentralized social networks, since you choose what you see and who you want to see or follow. And your content belongs to you and no one else. Since being decentralized, like Bitcoin, then the content will not be controlled by any kind of central entity. And in full freedom, a new question arises: who will dictate what is good or bad?
Monetization of decentralized social networks...
On the other hand, you may be wondering: How will I be able to make money then? Let's be clear, maybe in the beginning, back in the 2000ish, social networks were used to communicate, establish links between different cultures, stay connected, etc. But today, content creators on social networks profit from them, or at least that's what we believe. We always see that influencers get paid a lot of money for their content and for having millions of followers. So conventional social networks have become a desired means of livelihood for many. Today, social media has become a job for content creators.
Unlike conventional ones, decentralized social networks, being based on Blockchain technology, are powered by tokens or what many of us know as cryptocurrencies or digital money, which are part of their intrinsic nature. In this way, tokens will encourage the use of decentralized social networks and facilitate their sustainability.
Another advantage that decentralized social networks provide is that they use a decentralized governance system, where users can participate in making decisions about the development and improvement of the platform. Looks heavenly, isn't it? Obviously, this is not as nice as it sounds, there is a stratification within the governance, and much of the percentage of decisions are held by the developers, the investors, and the users involved in the infrastructure (i.e. those who lend their equipment as a link in the blockchain) and finally the end users (like you and me) who will also have a small percentage in the decisions... (But at least we do!)
Why the heck haven't they taken off?
So, if decentralized social networks offer privacy, security, governance, and sustainability, why on earth haven't they taken off?
Largely because of the very concept of the Blockchain, the user must know terms such as wallets, private keys, smart contracts, seeds, and a series of other complicated and obscure terms that make it hard and intimidating to use. Adapting and learning to use new technologies always has a difficult slope to overcome. However, there are benefits to the effort.
Hive, an example of a decentralized social network
You may have heard about Hive, a decentralized social network, where you can publish content and get cryptocurrencies from its platform through community voting. If your content is interesting, you get more votes (in theory), and more reputation and thus you get a larger amount of cryptocurrencies as a reward, which translates into more money. Although this is not entirely true, it also depends on your interaction with the community and the number of users who follow your content and other things that in my opinion are also obscure.
Similarly, if your content is not appreciated, it can be downvoted, which decreases your reputation, making you less visible to others and getting less money. This creates an equitable way to receive compensation and censor content.
Everything here seems like a dream come true, and indeed it was, however, the volatility of cryptocurrencies is a serious problem. When the value of a cryptocurrency declines, it loses its credibility and thus, its followers. As we have seen with many other decentralized social networking platforms, that I have come across, such as Whaleshare, Blurt, Rhabits, and Cbnt (the latter had a lot of very good content). Did you ever get to hear about them?
This makes you lose confidence in the new cryptocurrencies that emerge.
The government steps in...
Coupled with this, there are regulations, international regulations, and national blockades by the governments of each country. For most people, cryptocurrencies have been the stuff of hackers, the underworld, or the world of the matrix. Given their anonymous nature, you hear that cryptocurrency transactions are used by bad guys with illegal motives such as selling drugs, weapons, and worse. In my view, that also plays a large part in the acceptance of decentralized social networks.
Going deeper into the subject, cryptocurrencies must follow strict regulations to be taken seriously, there are official entities that are monitoring the use of cryptocurrencies and it is because of them that many sites when not complying with the rules are fined or disappear to avoid complications. In addition, some countries do not allow the use of cryptocurrencies and therefore block access to them.
The problem with famous cryptocurrencies
Sometimes I wonder, why don't they make a decentralized social network based on Bitcoin or Ethereum, which are more stable and globally known cryptocurrencies. The answer lies in their cores. That is, in the way they work. Generating a block of information from the Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain requires enormous computing power, requires more powerful computers, which consume a lot of current. So here we see two drawbacks: speed and power consumption.
Let's explain this in more detail, by requiring more computing power, it requires a significant consumption of electricity, which can translate into environmental problems in the future. By requiring more computing power, it takes more time to generate the block of information in the blockchain, so transactions tend to take longer to be carried out and this translates into a scalability problem. That is, each time the number of users increases, more transactions per user will be required, increasing the computational power to maintain a considerable speed, but this becomes increasingly impossible the more user demand grows.
That is why today we are looking for ideas to innovate the way blocks are generated so that they meet the scalability requirement and maintain all their decentralization features. Returning to the example of Hive, which is a copy of the Steemit network, another decentralized social network (a long story to tell). Both networks use a protocol that is faster and does not consume the amount of computation and energy that Bitcoin or Ethereum do, and of course, they have their cryptocurrencies; however, they are based on a system of consensus by investment power. And here comes the problem. Whoever has the power rules the network. And we return to the initial problem of centralization.
But well, without going into too much technical detail, let's say that it is less centralized than conventional social networks.
Multiple platforms emerge and die as fast as they appear
In my opinion, there are so many decentralized social network platforms that one gets lost in them and in all the different cryptocurrencies of each of them. The problem with this is the lack of interoperability. Each network works differently and is not compatible with the others. They are born and die, they illusionize the user and as such, living on illusions you die of disappointment.
Today, however, interoperability is being achieved in the new trends of decentralized social networks such as Lens, which runs on the Polygon Blockchain and is designed to give users more control and ownership over their data and content by making use of non-fungible tokens (the famous NFTs) that represent users' content and relationships. That means that your content is an NFT, i.e. it is already a token as such and has value.
By the way, the Polygon blockchain is one of the solutions I was talking about before. Polygon is a scalable Ethereum-compatible blockchain designed to improve the scalability and speed of decentralized applications built on Ethereum.
Wrapping up...
Anyway, we've already seen a bit about what I know about decentralized social networks. My knowledge is limited in the use of decentralized social networks as I don't dare to invest in a platform that asks me for money to sign up and start using its application. That's why I have no idea about those other new decentralized social networks where you have to pay to use them. It probably has an advantage over those that don't require you to pay to start using them.
There is another article within this same territory created by Juampi, where he talks more about the monetization of this type of decentralized social network and according to his approach, in my opinion, good money is made.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this contest.
This post is taking part in the t2 x Kiwi Writing Contest
Image by Gerd Altmann at Pixabay
