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by Benedikt Herudek
Blockchains are commonly compared to databases, for obvious reasons as they store transactions. However, one could just as well understand them as a middleware connecting endpoints via permanently stored transactions. Bitcoin works as a technology to exchange currency, which is a specific and simple form of parties exchanging information. If we could generalise and extend this notion of information, we would be able to build a decentralized middleware.
One hope one could connect to such a middleware would be that technologically and organizationally, it would leave no room for one data monopolist ( Facebook, Uber, Airbnb et al ) to mediate transactions and take too large of a cut. Just like bitcoin takes out banks from the middle – man position, a distributed middleware allowing exchange of any type of information (not just currency), might be able achieving something similar.
This post will not describe how such a Blockchain-ish’ distributed middleware could be implemented, one high level attempt can be found here . The attempt goes at great length attempting to avoid standards for data exchange formats.
Take Facebook as an example. Arguably, the main service a platform like Facebook offers is that it structures conversation such into one data format, that all on the platform can converse with each other. Imagine, we magically had a ‘machine babelfish ’ that would allow applications to seamlessly converse with each other over the internet. A net we could image then would consist of many small to medium to large private Facebook-alikes, which might offer similar or different features but also would allow its members to talk to any other Facebook-alike in the net. If such a ‘machine babelfish’ existed, there would be no need for users to subscribe to Facebook. Users might stick with Facebook, but they might just as well […]
