Control of information on the web, the integration of blockchain technology, and the new role of decentralized communities were among the key topics discussed at the conference “Big Tech vs. Web3: The Battle for the Metaverse.”
The event featured Federico Ast, who holds degrees in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, a Ph.D. in Business Administration from IAE Business School, and is the founder of Kleros, a project that applies blockchain and crowdsourcing to dispute resolution. He completed Singularity programme Global Solutions programme in 2016. He has been a TEDx speaker. He teaches courses on “Blockchain Disruption,” “The Lawyer of the Future,” and “How to Invest in Crypto” on the online education platform Coursera.
The conference—organized by the Universidad ORT UruguayGraduate School of Business Universidad ORT Uruguaywas held online on Friday, March 29. It was part of the Management and Business Lecture Series.
Control of information
In the 1990s, the Internet was born with the promise of decentralization. But over time, it came under the control of a handful of Silicon Valley tech companies.
Ast focused on the case of the company now known as Meta (formerly Facebook). “Meta is a social network with hundreds of millions of users that exerts significant control over information consumption; it knows our identities, what we buy and sell, who we’re with, and how we interact. Of course, it’s only a short step from there to having its own currency.”
“Meta is a virtual company or state in which we are all subjects and have no way of controlling how the rules are enforced.”
The expert added: “Some even believe that its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, is a sort of Louis XIV, something like a monarch of the digital world. The flow of the internet passes through the hands of a single person. His company also controls WhatsApp, and the next step—which he has already announced—is to transform the company into the world of the metaverse.”
“One person is going to own all the human interaction we have in this world. In a way, we’re already in the metaverse. We are now immersed in Zuckerberg’s vision.”
The adoption of blockchain
“This is the situation we face today. Blockchain was the first step toward building a new model of the internet, which emerged in 2008.”
Around that time, Satoshi Nakamoto—whose real name remains a mystery—invented the first cryptocurrency: Bitcoin. This payment method began operating in 2009 using the shared blockchain ledger.
“The basis of blockchain,” the expert explained, “is a network of computers that maintain a single ledger. Each computer has an identical copy of the ledger and updates the database.”
“The ledger is maintained without the need for a public authority or a monopolist. Beyond the financial details, this represented a structural shift from the Web 2.0 model to the Web 3.0 model. Blockchain is a distributed, shared, and tamper-proof database. has highly advanced has and its status as a public good, no one can make arbitrary changes to the ledger.”
“What we call ‘decentralized revenue sharing’ is taking shape. One of the first people to utilize this approach was an English woman who noticed that YouTube was taking a very large cut of musicians’ earnings and developed a platform to generate micropayments for songs.”
Blockchain and Web3 are ushering in a new era in the development of the Internet: a competition between big tech companies and decentralized platforms over who will control the future of the metaverse.
Decentralized communities
Federico Ast is the founder of Kleros, an autonomous blockchain organization that acts as a decentralized and impartial third party to arbitrate disputes. The system provides fast, cost-effective, and transparent rulings.
“Kleros is designed as a tool with an incentive system, which makes it much more cost-effective than any traditional system.”
“The process takes no more than seven days. This means it’s 10 times faster than traditional methods,” Ast added.
The expert concluded that, just as Kleros exists, “we are going to see more and more decentralized communities around the world.”
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