The Power of Decentralized Computing

We live in a world of systems, mostly designed to make our lives easier and more productive. We don’t really notice until a system changes, or disrupts our life to the point of irritating us.

Think about the power grid. We don’t know what it’s like to have spotty power at our homes, or to have power for only some day parts. When electricity was making its way across the US surges, blackouts, even rationing were common. But because having a little electricity was better than none at all, people were happy with the improvement. Eventually, power was available to everyone. And now, when we have the smallest surge or an hour without power we are really irritated. We’ve gotten spoiled by a system that is 99% effective. 

Inside the power grid is an evolving system of decentralized sources: from nuclear plants, to solar farms, to coal generators to home solar. This decentralization creates greater stability not only in delivery, but also in pricing. Electrical utilities will continue to decentralize as power generation gets smaller, cleaner, more personal, and more efficient. 

This decentralizing process benefits the consumer. We expect our service to be reliable.

The same applies to computing, particularly the Internet. The Internet has become a utility that we all rely on, just like power and water. But rather than evolve toward decentralization; storage, access, even performance on the Internet remain centralized. Imagine 3 power plants serving the entire US. When one goes down, a third of the Nation is in the dark. If one centralized service like Google, Apple, or YouTube becomes biased, then at least one-third of us are in the dark concerning facts that affect our lives.

This is also true if the personal data they manage is corrupted, manipulated, or exploited. 

As more people experience data hacks and surveillance, we become more and more irritated with the service we’re getting. We were promised a safe Internet, yet third-parties control our data and there is so much potential for abuse. 

It’s time to decentralize control on the Internet. Rather than having mega data centers that store all user’s data, and mega media companies that inform based on a particular political leaning, doesn’t it make sense to break up those monoliths of storage and influence?

Decentralization is about protecting against widespread abuse of power.

By empowering consumers with control and choice over the resources they need most, opportunities are delivered to all, the risk of being exploited is minimized, and the whole population interacts on trust.

Decentralized Storage

Personal data should never reside in public places, or one general warehouse. It’s too easy for rogue AI programs to fish around in the big ponds for everything related to you. Processing power and that same AI capability can now work to our benefit. For example: legal documents you need to store in fire and flood proof ways demand an electronic solution. But the big data clouds attract bad actors, and inside jobs. It’s now possible to shard an electronic document and spread it out among thousands of servers around the world, each piece encrypted and redundant. When you retrieve it, with your unique key, those pieces are assembled, decrypted and presented to you. You control who has access to it. 

Decentralizing storage is the first step to controlling our digital lives. And now it is possible.

See why Decentralized storage is so much more centralized, check out this video.