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According to professionals, there is nothing like mid-way as regards to the blockchain, it will either have prosperity or depression. I have turned to be a great fan of blockchain technology and particularly the crypto-economics as it had been pushing powerful network effects.
Amidst plenty of thoughts, beliefs, and conversations, according to me, it will prove useful to explore in-depth the consequences of blockchain technology because it connects to leading tech companies. A question arises, as will Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple be dethroned by alternatives based on blockchain? What I got, after going through a deep investigation into the business a prototype is:
A quick explanation
To be very precise, for the beginners to this world, blockchains are incontrovertible, many times trustless ledgers that make digital scarcity and many other such probabilities. They possibly symbolize the main risk to the existing state of affairs, because of their decentralized nature and also their economic incentive models.
This signifies that anything can now be completed and noted down on the blockchain, which was once done or stored on paper. It can make an unlimited and unalterable paper track of ownership records, programmable treaties, monetary data, and subjective data and a lot. And perhaps it may be owned by the users.
The GAFA tech gods
While going into 2018, we are as such entering into an age of matchless tech domination. As companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple possess our information and everything; they regulate much of our daily life. The intrinsic network and gyroscope made by these companies are exceptional in their scope and the skill to prevent the competition.
In today’s world where everything is continuously changing, as per my belief, it will be advantageous to scrutinize the contestants based on blockchain to fight today’s tech monsters and to concentrate on how to gain success.
At present, the most intricate company having many sections and products controlling our day-to-day life is Google. Avoiding other sectors, we will concentrate mainly on advertising which is their prime business model.
Google Search
As more than 77% of global searches are going through Google, it is the leading search engine. Google possesses more than ¾ of the search engine market, regardless of the fact that 1.3B people live behind China’s Firewall, and this domination is the reason for Google’s historic rise. Advertising and mainly search ads generate 86.5% of Alphabet’s income. (Source: Statista).
Youtube
World’s second biggest search engine and certainly the biggest user-generated video stage is YouTube where every minute user uploads an incredible 100 hours of content. In 2015, YouTube and Google Play accounted for ~ 15% of Google’s income as per Credit Suisse’s belief and by 2020 it is predicted to touch 24%. Keeping in mind, in 2006, Google paid $ 1.65B to get them is one hell of a deal.
AdSense — display advertising
AdSense, Google’s partner network, is another part of its advertising dominance. Through Google’s advertising platform AdSense permits sites to earn revenue, not bothering about the backend or to find advertisers. Rather Google manages entirely, getting around 32% to 49% of income produced from an ad.
In 2016, AdSense income accounted for $15.5B, which is 23% of Google’s total income as per Investopedia. Advertising as a business, instead of concentrating on quality it concentrates on eyeballs which results in humiliation and sensationalized headlines. Any radical change is not found in the advertising model, which means with AdSense Google will achieve huge success and will constantly grow.
How blockchain beats Google
Eyeballs, attention and supposed transparency are mostly the business of Google. Their task of sharing information openly with the world and their motto, “don’t be evil” is remarkably in disagreement.
So here such a picture is formed in which Google’s platform becomes the god and those who perform as per his rules are permitted in Google’s garden. However, crypto makes things difficult for Google.
Mainly, the domination of Google is motivated by the network effects of large data and AI joined with the force of habit which is a detrimental situation. Simultaneously, in the tech community, many are troubled about the tech monster’s role in our lives because it is connected to selling our private information.
The tech community is taking few shots over their role in the US election from users and politicians.
Search
The problem of uneven inducements can be sorted out by a blockchain browser or a search engine. After my investigation for the book, I began to use a privacy-focused search engine called DuckDuckGo, which showed me Google’s power and control over my life.
DuckDuckGo (DDG) seldom displays ads and that too based on the real search query, instead of gathering any personal data just for selling more ads.
Even though there are issues, DDG’s approach has vital benefits for users, i.e. eliminating the intermediating value with personal information. Due to its proficiency in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and their data, Google is ruling the world. They can provide greater know-hows because they know us better than we know ourselves.
As a result, in US Antitrust action will never take place; we define monopoly as consumer price overcharging and deprived experiences; just the contrary of whatever that is given by the leading tech companies. Google gives you the best results for you and that too at the very moment.
Hypothetically, a blockchain based search engine (BBSE) may win. Joined with an identity coin as Citizen, and to show healthier and more personalized search results for users, a BBSE may use customer inclinations and information. Also, BBSE users may gain by earning tokenized commissions in exchange for watching the ads, in case advertising was added and also eliminating the combative relationship.
I predict this as being a long distance away; a 5-10x improved solution than the current product is required for changing user behavior. It will take years to reach that point where a BBSE exceeds Google’s market share. Ignoring the terms of service majority people very easily share their data and information.
Video
One has to face similar challenges while competing with YouTube as dealing with search. But one main benefit is that the creators built the platform and value. And this may be fascinating as the advertising on YouTube is not so effective for the huge mass of creators.
According to our analysis, the average CPM that can be expected from YouTube videos is between $0.50 and $5.00. That means that for every 1 million views of your videos, you can expect to make between $500 and $5,000. — Monetize Pros
Our investigation says that the average CPM i.e. cost per thousand which is predicted from YouTube videos is between $0.50 and $5.00 which says that you can hope to obtain between $500 and $5,000 for every 1 million opinions of your videos. Particularly, seeing podcast ads gaining 5-20x greater CPMs seems quite awful.
YouTube being much competitive and having restricted earning capacity, it sounds reasonable that creators may cross-populate content. Very less competition and so a higher rate of attention can be seen on a novel blockchain based video platform (BBVP).
The rewards will be more fascinating, in case inducements were added for creators to make content and involved viewers. The main motivating benefit makes in-built network effects and time insistence, carrying your subscribers before it is done by other users of YouTube. So to bring enough eyeballs for generating better income will take time.
However, using powerful token incentives and quality content, it would not be risky to say that news will spread. But the question arises as of how fast it will spread? Probabilities are a BBVP and may take many years to mature. Anything that can be considered as perennial, SEO (search engine optimization) rich content is that every minute YouTube has more than 100 hours of video uploaded. It may not be easy to steal search traffic because Google favors YouTube.
Adsense
The internet and journalism are destroyed by advertising, and quality began to lower down, as soon as the world moved from subscriptions to display ads. At present, the ruler is clickbait.
A world in which artificial attention is rewarded has been shaped by more eyeballs and page views. It is realized that the quality of journalism and content are lowering down; giving priority to inflammatory headlines, loud thumbnails and unintentionally supporting a stupid person as Trump.
Theoretically, this can be solved by a blockchain based publication model (BBPM)
A good job has been done by the media of exemplifying the point and also permitting the users to clap or upvote for those articles which they liked. An analogous model does the job of reissuing dollars to those sites and publications which we enjoy the most.
And many companies and organizations are attempting to do that both with and without blockchain. However, it is not an easy offer as most of them do not know the power or the risk of personal data. The majority are satisfied with “being the product” and earning for their contribution to the system.
According to me, the only way a blockchain based solution to Adsense could win may be tokenized incentives for early users to the system in which an if/then statement would be attached with the Adsense ads. So if the user is the member of BBPM, then no ads and if not, then show ads.
For taking part in the BBPM, publishers may mutually conspire to take over the market and to build a sequentially gliding scale of advertising insensitivity through all web properties inspiring lazybones to change. I cannot see a “mafia-like” attitude getting approved or hope that in under a generation it can change. Believe that it may aid in killing clickbait.
