>> "Given the ridiculous amount of investment in the blockchain/cryptocurrency space these past years how long do we have to wait until we see the actual results?"
This kind of thing is obviously extremely hard to say without any sort of accuracy, but my best guess, within a year or two. Specifically, you will start to see scaling solutions finally launch (lightning network, the numerous ETH initiatives, etc.), and you will start to see some dapps gain actual usage or traction (DEXs, collectibles, etc.).
>> "It's a lie. The internet is fundamentally decentralized, the centralization is a relatively new phenomenon that started in the early '00s."
Yes, obviously there is nothing _technically_ stopping the Internet from being decentralized. But I think what you are missing is the incentive structures and the realities. Here is an interesting post from Chris Dixon arguing that what's unique about cryptocurrencies is that they provide an alternative structure that will encourage decentralized protocols to flourish: https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f.... It's not that Twitter can't be coded to be more decentralized without blockchains. It's that in reality, the economic reality is that such a service eventually closes off its API, bait-and-switching users into their walled garden. Like open source software, cryptocurrencies may be a means of aligning people to work towards a different paradigm.
>I think what you are missing is the incentive structures and the realities
Oh I assure you that I'm not. The incentive structure is exactly why we ended up with a centralized web. But as with everything else the blockchain has a lot to say on the matter but not much to show for it.
Currently working in blockchain "stuff" is extremely rewarding because of the massive speculation and deflation surrounding it. You can write a relatively mundane 50 pages "whitepaper" and get millions for it. There's no shortage of "free money". But surely that won't last forever, things are bound to stabilize eventually, one way or an other.
So then what do we have? Those "dapps" are open source, the devs don't control the code, they don't control the storage, they don't control the blockchain. They control nothing. Anybody can come and undercut them with zero effort. That's a feature. Google and Facebook control everything, they control the interface, they control the storage, they control the data, they control how you access all of that. Thanks to this they "offer" you the service "for free" (i.e., for your data). How can blockchain devs ever hope to compete with that? By convincing the general population that they should pay for decentralized services instead of using centralized services "for free"? The very thing they've refused to do time and again for the past 15 years at least?
I'm very much unconvinced that the Blockchain has found a solution to this very complicated problem. It's just wishful thinking IMO.
Cebtralization as I see it has been mostly pushed by spam and abuse. Email became centralized due to the difficulty in combating spam at scale. The large positive I see with crypto networks is the cost of being a bad actor is magnitudes higher, and now you don't have to be the machine intelligence wizards to fight spam, you can combat it fairly straightforwardly with simple economic hindrances for being a bad actor.
This kind of thing is obviously extremely hard to say without any sort of accuracy, but my best guess, within a year or two. Specifically, you will start to see scaling solutions finally launch (lightning network, the numerous ETH initiatives, etc.), and you will start to see some dapps gain actual usage or traction (DEXs, collectibles, etc.).
>> "It's a lie. The internet is fundamentally decentralized, the centralization is a relatively new phenomenon that started in the early '00s."
Yes, obviously there is nothing _technically_ stopping the Internet from being decentralized. But I think what you are missing is the incentive structures and the realities. Here is an interesting post from Chris Dixon arguing that what's unique about cryptocurrencies is that they provide an alternative structure that will encourage decentralized protocols to flourish: https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f.... It's not that Twitter can't be coded to be more decentralized without blockchains. It's that in reality, the economic reality is that such a service eventually closes off its API, bait-and-switching users into their walled garden. Like open source software, cryptocurrencies may be a means of aligning people to work towards a different paradigm.