Blockchain—The Next Big Thing No One Understands
Can you guess what these historical events have in common with blockchain technology?
* At the turn of the century, a breakthrough Internet communication technology called “peer-to-peer” (P2P) debuts and is deployed mainly to assist like-minded individuals in sharing music over the Internet. That is, music they have already purchased and owned, but are supposedly willing to lend out on a case-by-case basis. The leading exponent of the tech is a program called “Napster.”
The basis for the tech is that, instead of simply using the Internet for two-way communication—from user to site, user to user, or site to user—this new concept distributes the data over all the users of the program who have their computers switched on at any moment in time, whether or not they are actually using the program and whether or not they are even aware of what is happening.
* The music industry correctly interprets this new tech as disruptive and potentially destructive to its 100-year-old (and very lucrative) licensing model. The industry brings in every lawyer, paralegal, and bounty hunter it can wrangle to shut down Napster .
It is ultimately successful but, unfortunately, by then, most of the damage has been done. Competitors immediately spring up—companies like Kazaa and Limewire —to fill the void left by Napster. And an upstart entrepreneur named Steve Jobs pulls off one of the most brilliant marketing coups of all time. In a series of ads, Jobs vaguely alludes to the fact that all his “Mac” models are ready, out-of-the-box, to burn music CDs (CDs that contain music tracks in the space-saving MP3 format). Mac sales skyrocket.
* Jobs’ marketing coup essentially saves his company and, moreover, the success of the campaign inspires Jobs to create a portable device that plays only MP3 music […]
