A Close Account Of The Inevitability Of Tokenized Data- Part 1

Where Is The Tokenisation Heading?

In this age of blockchain technology, we are thereby reaching the end game which comes as an inevitable showdown which is between big tech and the regulators with the battleground which is around consumer data. It is that in many of the ways, the fact comes to be that things have gotten here reflecting the market that has not yet developed an alternative to the data paradigm of Google and Facebook as sources and sellers and Amazon as the host that today dominates.

Offering such an alternative is the tokenisation and decentralisation of data whereas the first generation comes of utility tokens backed by nothing more than dreams as the new generation of tokens connected explicitly to the value of data that will arise. 

Reaching A New Inflection Point Is The Conversation Around Data

Calling for the breakup of technology giants including Amazon and Facebook is the presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren where the move was felt like an inevitable culmination of the latest few years where the public sentiment is around the blockchain technology industry shifting from overwhelmingly positive to increasingly skeptical.

When populist ideology rises, all institutions of power are therefore subject to greater scrutiny where one part of that is growing skepticism that has to do with the fact. Whereas as you go by honing in on specifics, the clarity of the issue underlying the loss of faith in technology companies is data about what is collected, how it is used, and who profits from it. 

With the Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, there is a significant amount of user data which was used to help the Russian political actors sew discord and thereafter help Trump get elected in 2016 with the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg coming in a subsequent testimony in front of the Congress as the watershed moment losing faith around data. 

It was observed later that those who had dismissed the consumer outrage around the event thereby pointing out that it was barely anyone who left the platform whereas the event failed to recognise that the real impact was surely more likely to be something which is providing political cover for the call to break up the company. 

Therefore the fact was that not every 2020 Democratic candidate for the Presidency agrees thereby with Warren’s call were in response, Andrew Yang the upstart candidate has made waves focusing on Universal Basic Income with appearances on Joe Rogen’s popular podcast writing that they agree there are fundamental issues with big tech whereas there is a need to expand the toolset and for an example sharing in the profits from the use of their data. This comes better than simply regulating with the need for a new legal regime that doesn’t rely on consumer prices for anti-trust. 

As he comes from the world of blockchain technology, one could suggest that Yang is biased and being more vocal and articulate about the coming threat of displacement from automation than any candidate. With a notion of a different arrangement of the economics of data between the people producing it and the platform using it which are worth considering. 

The Argument On The Future And The Failure

Making an argument in the fact that it is not only this sort of heavy-handed regulatory approach to data inevitable while representing the fundamental market failure in the way the economics of data are organised. 

It has been said that data is the new oil where the analogy is that fuel by which the attention economy functions without data as there is no advertising and without that there are none of the free services as it has come to dominate the social lives. 

Coming with another aspect is of course the market for data which is the place it lives. Pointing out that 16% of the money put into companies goes directly to Amazon’s coffers for data hosting as investor Chamath Palihapitiya says. In the fact, there are even more Presidential candidates looking to score points with a populist base as the regulators think that all of the technology comes aligned around preserving the Status Quo were big financial motivations for something different. 

Here Enters Decentralization

A16Z investor Chris Dixon in his seminal essay Why Decentralisation Matters explains how incentives are diverging in networks as the beginning of networks, the network owners and participants have the same incentive growing the number of nodes in the blockchain network. A threshold is being reached however inevitably where the pure growth in the new participants isn’t achievable whereas the network owner has to turn instead to extracting more from the existing participants. 

The Discussion Extends To The Second Part

The reasons don’t end up here. There is more to note in the second part also. Read the whole article for a clear view of the topic.