New Era

P A G E 1 4 | N E W E R A
M U H A M M E T C A N O T S A Y
Wikipedia has been described as decentralized, although technically
not exactly so. (Bruns, 2008, 80) On the other hand, Wikipedia cofounder
Larry Sanger argues that Wikipedia may not reflect the truth any
more. Larry Sanger, who is like one of the profiles I mentioned above,
suggests that as a solution to this problem, everyone who expresses an
opinion on the Internet should turn their home computers into servers
and publish their blogs on their own computers. Doing this is actually
simpler than it seems, Sanger says in an interview that with devices
called network attached storage (NAS), anyone can publish their own
blogs from their own computers at low costs. (UnHerd, 2021) In this case,
the freedom to publish your opinion is entirely in your hands.
At the same time, Redecentralize.org, founded by a group of volunteers,
is trying to decentralize the internet again. They are trying to spread
their ideas with their manifesto and decentralized alternative
applications they offer against centralized internet applications.
(Redecentralize.org, n.d.)
Another issue that has plagued Silicon Valley nerds has been fiat
currencies, which represent the fruits of their labor, and the national
central banks (perhaps even global) that manage them.
In 1971, the US Federal Reserve ended the practice of holding gold in
exchange for printed US dollars. With the end of this approach called
the gold standard, the Federal Reserve could now print as much money
as it wanted to control inflation and the value of money. An asset with
no limit is now managed (fiat money).
It was now only in the hands of a group of people to determine the
value of people's labor. In the 2007-2008 global financial crisis,
people's savings lost their value in a short time. After this incident,
internet nerds rebelliously came up with a solution. Bitcoin, a digital
currency running on blockchain infrastructure (decentralized). With 21
million in total, bitcoin is a currency that has a limit and is not managed
by a center, unlike fiat currencies. There is no need for a center like
banks to transfer this currency.
After the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, some Twitter users left
Twitter and started using Mastodon, which is allegedly decentralized.
Decentralized internet nerds still continue to shape the internet and
society. These days, new projects are entering our lives every day. Let's
see where the battle between centralized and decentralized will take
us.