A group of open-source developers gathered under the banner of ‘Blockstack.org’ has decided to launch a new version of the Web. Yep, you heard right.
The group has started off its business by launching a browser called, ‘Blockstack browser’ – ostensibly to “give power back to the people”, those who use the Internet.
Blockchain tech powers this new version of the Internet. Blockchain-based tech has been around for a while, but the technology is too complex, & the average internet user has not had that “aha!” moment: that moment, as with the first Netscape browsers, when you felt you were discovering something truly new, vastly big, & unbelievably cool, said the developers on their official blog. “Our platform & the dedicated community of developers will lead us to that “aha!” moment for the average Internet denizen experiencing a new type of Internet.”
So, why this effort? Here’s what the post says:
The internet is broken. It has been for a while. Even the fathers of the internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf, say that it’s broken. We realize you are probably reading this on the internet, and it seems to be working just fine. So how exactly is the internet broken?
Imagine a world where people don’t have property rights. In this world, you cannot own a house, and all your belongings are kept in a storage facility owned by a few corporations. And in this world, walking into any store or theater implies that you disclose all your personal information, places you’ve been, other things you’ve bought to the business owners. You are tracked 24/7, your belongings are stolen from storage facilities, and you can’t do anything about it.
Most of us would not stand for this in our real, everyday lives. But on the internet, we tolerate and even expect it. We become dependent on nameless, faceless, remote parties just by connecting. On the internet, we are powerless. Our existence on the internet is defined by others, whether that other be a mega-corporation or a government.
Now, we can change that.
A new Internet, said the post, needed to “have security & safety as a core of its DNA”. Applications & services, it said, cannot be owned & controlled by remote 3rd-parties. The effort is to build a digital world of truly peer-to-peer Internet utilities not maintained by corporations, but collectively, by the people.
Image Credit: Blockstack
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