Several decentralized applications (also known as dApps) have emerged in recent years, and their developers assert that they can successfully compete with centralized software. This next generation of decentralized applications (dApps) comes with all the capabilities and advantages of the previous generation of apps.
It is clear that the age of Web3 is not an abstract concept since there are already various applications in the real world that make use of blockchain technology and, more specifically, Ethereum. The following are some instances of monopolies that might be challenged by web3 alternatives.
Do you recall doing a search for footwear on your mobile device and afterward coming across an advertisement for the same footwear on your laptop when you were browsing YouTube?
When you use a centralized browser, everything you do, including accessing a website, entering passwords, and making a purchase, may be recorded and shared with third parties. These companies can then use the information to run advertisements.
The majority of Google’s yearly earnings came from advertising, which brought in more than $100 billion.
When we access a web website, we are often confronted with advertisements that are both irrelevant and annoying. They are unable to prevent the advertisements, even after installing a number of different ad blockers. They not only degrade the quality of your surfing experience but also use 50% of your monthly mobile data allowance and reduce the battery life of your phone by up to 20%.
The answer is in Brave
Brave is an internet browser that prioritizes users’ privacy and allows users to go to websites. It has several distinctive traits:
- On Brave, there are no advertisements of any kind shown to users.
- Reward on advertising (BAT): You have the option to have advertisements shown on the browser, and if you choose to do so, you will be compensated with a cryptocurrency produced by Brave called BAT (Basic Attention Token).
- Brave leaves no digital imprint behind because, unlike competing web browsers, it does not monitor the data you enter.
- Time and data saved: If you go to the main page of Brave, you will be able to see how much time and data you have saved that you would not have been able to save if you had not been using Brave.
This is the reason why Brave was able to increase the number of its monthly active users for the fifth year in a row, bringing the total up from 24 million on the 31st of December in 2020 to over 50 million by the end of 2021. They finished the year with over 15.5 million people using their service on a daily basis.
You may listen to music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or YouTube Music.
This year, the online music streaming business brought in more than 8 billion dollars. It is disheartening to learn that artists all around the world only get a little portion of the profits from their work.
The vast majority of artists are compensated by prominent record companies; hence, Spotify takes a cut of the earnings and then transfers the remaining funds to the record labels. Before making payments to artists, record labels deduct additional fees.
According to a survey published by iGroove Music in 2020, the reimbursement from Spotify for one million listens ranged anywhere from $850 in Argentina to $5,479 in Norway.
An artist requires between 220 thousand and 1.4 million streams a month in order to make money which is comparable to the minimum wage in the United States, which is $1200.
Because of this, there is little opportunity for artists to generate a substantial amount of money.
This problem is solved by Audius
Everyone who creates music has the ability to post material and make money off of it via Audius.
There are no prerequisites, such as having to be signed to a label or having a large fan base, and there are no limits. Artists may also earn Audio tokens for achieving certain milestones on Audius, such as having a track that is among the top five weekly trending songs or having a playlist that is among the top five trending playlists.
Around one hundred thousand musicians have signed up for the site, which also has over six million users on a monthly basis. Audius supports streaming and downloads at 320 kbps, which enables it to provide the finest possible sound quality across all free music services.
At the moment, just 12% of the income generated by the music business are distributed to the artists, but Audius wants to increase that figure to 90%. This is feasible because artists retain ownership of their work, therefore there are no intermediaries getting a part of the profits.
Youtube
Platforms for centralized web 2 video streaming have a great deal of difficulty. Taking into consideration YouTube, items such as:
- Concerns About Copyright
- Scam remarks
- The censorship of certain subjects
- Uncertainty and a lack of financial security for creators
In 2020, YouTube only paid between $100 and $400 for every million views received in India.
Since the existence of the whole platform is dependent on the material that artists produce, then it begs the question: why does YouTube take up the bulk of the earnings?
Odysee is here to help find a solution to this.
Odysee, in contrast to large IT corporations, was developed by the same team that developed LBRY, a blockchain system. Odysee operates in a fundamentally different fashion compared to YouTube, which saves videos that are uploaded to its centralized servers.
It then uploads the material to the network, where the computers that are part of that network distribute the data and keep it available. The LBRY blockchain, on the other hand, just stores the information about where the files may be found.
It is a blockchain-based video streaming network that is decentralized and operates on the Library (LBRY) platform. It has more effective moderation, and unlike YouTube, it does not utilize any of your data.
Since the material is exchanged peer-to-peer (directly), and not via a middleman like YouTube, the author retains ownership of the work and is compensated for it without any involvement from a third party getting a share of the profits.
Instagram is one of the social networking sites that is expanding at the quickest rate internationally, and it now has around one billion monthly active users.
It takes note of your location, the apps you enjoy, and how much time you spend in each aspect of the program. It then generates customized advertisements based on the comparison of your data across all of Meta’s applications, such as Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
More than $9 billion in advertising income was generated in the United States by Instagram in 2019. It is anticipated that it would generate yearly ad revenues of more than $18 billion in the year 2021.
Showtime is a social networking platform that is decentralized
Showtime is a social network built by NFT that allows users to find and view digital artwork. It’s like Instagram, except for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You are able to follow other users and create a profile for yourself. You are able to see your NFTs on whatever platform that you use, whether it is SuperRare OpenSea, Foundation, or Nifty Gateway.
You have the ability to like NFTs, comment on NFTs, and share NFTs with others. Showtime allows you to find new crypto artists to follow and discover by allowing you to explore the trending tab. The site showcases a wide range of artistic approaches and degrees of skill. You may now make your own NFTs, purchase and trade them, and even buy them for free with Showtime.
This only applies to NFTs, but there is a significant chance that the social media platforms we use now could one day become decentralized.
There are a variety of applications, such as Aether, Mastodon, Minds, Diaspora, and MeWe, that offer a superior and decentralized form of social media for the modern world. With these apps, users retain ownership of their data and are not vulnerable to the manipulated content advertisements served by traditional social media platforms.
