The layered Internet — From Web To Blockchain and beyond 2020…
In the year 2000, I was asked by IDC to write some visionary perspective for their millennium edition about the next 20 years of Internet. The essence was: “It’s not the Internet that will change the world but the applications and services that run on top of it. Websites are only the first layer of what is to come.” Today, ever closer to 2020 I want to revisit and share today’s evolution and where it may go.
Layers of the Internet
Indeed, websites have been just the very rudimentary starting point. E-Commerce has become a layer on top of websites and developed their very own world of trade, consumer interaction, consumer opinion sharing and fast access to pretty much any product from around the world. Today’s global trade has been accelerated like never before imaginable. If there is a new product in China, we can buy it tomorrow anywhere in the World. If we don’t want that product any longer we can sell it to a world wide audience. Just try this in 1980.
Social Media is yet another parallel world on the Internet. It doesn’t require a website or anything else. It’s not about trade and it’s not about pushing out some Information (even though some people abuse it for that). Social Media has helped us to keep in touch with friends around the world and gave us an opportunity to make new friends. Many of us developed a sense for “Digital Body Language” so we can get to know people very well even if we never met in person. Social Media helped to distribute news, opinion, happyness and sorrow instantly across the world. Social Media is the base for “Democratization Of Influence”. It get’s ever harder for politician to share their lies without instant senses and arguments. And it became almost impossible for a corporation to expose themselves as the “world leader of rathersomething”, if in fact they are not. And statements about countless happy customers can instantly be verified.
The Internet Of Things grew to a quite different application on the Internet. In this case a layer on top of the net was created to let devices and almost any product talk to others, exchange their current status or distributes important information, for instance to start a heater when it becomes cold and at the same time close the shutters, or slows down washing machines when the city experiences peak water consumption.
And more recently again a completely different layer was arising from the Internet: The BlockChain. In a way similar to Social Media, the BlockChain has it’s completely own dynamic and usage. In a way it is a hybrid of Internet Of Things and Social Media. The BlockChain manages, routes, reviews, releases or stops tiny process snippets. The so called “Smart Contracts” are individual but connected “orders” that will be decided or rejected to process. For instance if a ship arrived in a harbor the process confirms that this part of a contract is completed. If the product have been loaded onto a truck, another contract has been completed and so forth. Or if money is supposed to be transmitted from one account to another, but only if certain conditions have been confirmed, these actions are all flowing in a chain of many blocks in parallel. If a block gets lost, corrupted or manipulated, many other blocks alert that one of their data sisters is out of synch. Again all that runs autonomously in the “good old Internet”
CarTech could soon be yet another major service that will run on the Internet. Unlike the Internet of Things where devices are connected and talk to each other — like distance sensors slow down the engine, and self driving cars are only possible thanks to the Internet of Things the automobile will change individual transportation in the most significant way ever. In a combination of IOT (Internet Of Things), GPS (Global Positioning System), WS (web Services) we will sooner or later see individual cars, build of ultra light weight material, that can be coupled to each other and drive together in a connected chain of cars. “Car Chaining” will allow to reduce the necessary power to drive people from A to B, shorten the distance between cars to zero, yet allow any car to detach itself and drive the last mile to a home that otherwise would not be easily reached by bus, train or any other way. This may case a complete rethinking of individual and mass transportation. “Car Chaining” could replace buses, trains, street cars, and taxis all at the same time.
EdTech — the biggest advantage of us humans is that we can learn ultra fast. Unfortunately our school systems made many of us hate learning and we try to prevent learning whenever possible — forever. The web allowed us to learn on steroid. Search engines made it extremely easy to get access to almost any knowledge we are looking for. Twitter allowed us to become aware of anything that happens right now. Educational videos on YouTube can even demonstrate almost anything we want to learn, whether it is to replace a fan in a tiny labtop or a surgery if need to be. Today it is all loosely coupled know how. I hope in the near future we can learn by simply watching curated content and learn anything any time — and never be asked again if we have a certificate that proves that we learned it, but a way that it becomes part of our online identity — rather than a meaningless university degree.
Internet Security is obviously one of the biggest concerns as we get more and more depending on the web. However the single biggest risk — by order of magnitude — is the ignorance of their users. Security systems today are very advanced. Yet users still share their password with others over unencrypted emails, stick it on their screen or have no password at all. The biggest effort will be to help users overcome their sloppy use of those systems.
Dear reader — do you see any new layer on top of the Internet? We all love to hear from you here.
