Bythe time the internet reached wide-scale adoption — whether you’re of the opinion that it was pre-1990s, mid-to-late 1990s, early 2000s, or maybe even after Steve Jobs’ artful unveil of the first iPhone at the 2007 MacWorld Conference — most of us had some sense of the power the internet holds. But what we might not have realized is that its adoption introduced the beginnings of a global revolution that would (and will continue to) change our lives forever. Of critical importance, it changed what we knew, or what we thought we knew, about how data (and eventually collective knowledge) is created, collected, processed, and exchanged through more open, widely available communication channels.

First, a Few Historical Perspectives That Led Us Here.

ARPANET is the earliest known precursor to the internet we know today. It originated at the Advanced Research Project Agency, a Department of Defense (DOD) Research & Development (R&D) agency around 1957, right after the successful launch of the Sputnik space satellite by the Soviet Union. As a response to Soviet advancements in science and technology during the Cold War, ARPANET’s original intended purpose was to facilitate information sharing between scientists and researchers during the war to advance the United State’s science and technology interests.

Now fast forward about four decades. The purpose of the more publicly-adopted internet remained consistent with ARPANET’s guiding principles: to serve as a means for connecting individuals through wide-spread sharing and consumption of information across a massively interwoven network. The internet was, and remains, one of the first truly decentralized information networks accessible by virtually anyone with a proper connection.

As it became more widely adopted, it introduced new opportunities: for one, it has made us more ‘readily’ knowledgeable. It has empowered the creation of new businesses, new ways of life, learning, and discovery; and it has facilitated more profound paths towards the generation of wealth and power, two factors heavily correlated with access to data and information.

“Those who control the data control the future, not just of humanity, but the future of life itself… because today, data is the most important asset in the world.”¹

— Yuval Noah Harari, historian and best-selling author

The internet also introduced a darker side: the expansion and strengthening of criminal networks and illicit behavior²; the likely widening of the global inequality gap³; and technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), which have the potential (on one extreme) to disrupt human relevance altogether, or (and perhaps more likely?) disproportionately influence how wealth and power is sustained by those at the top.

So what can be done to alleviate these concerns, even if the impact is nominal? To answer that, we must first go back to the original guiding principles of why the internet was created and change our paradigm for how data and information is collected, processed, and exchanged.

A New, Decentralized Modus Operandi Generates a Refreshed Foundation of Wealth & Power.

The challenge with generating knowledge in today’s interconnected world starts with data. Data makes up information, information makes up knowledge, and knowledge leads to wisdom and facilitates action. Without the ability to understand and react to data, it’s nearly impossible to generate accurate knowledge or facilitate appropriate action. And it’s not getting any easier.

In fact, there is more data today than ever and it’s growing at an exponential rate. From 2017 to 2025, new data produced is expected to grow ten-fold⁴. Just looking at data that’s available today, the majority of it (80–90% on average⁵) is unstructured. In layman’s terms, unstructured data is data which is not standardized, not easily searchable, and much more difficult to analyze. Think about the problem that creates. Put another way, that means that only those with the resources to search, consume, and understand unstructured data (again, ~80–90% of all data out there!) can reap the benefits of that information and gain associated knowledge.

We have a data inequality problem and it doesn’t get enough attention.

Generally speaking, only the most powerful people and largest organizations have had access to adequate resources to process this diverse data. These are the centralized authorities. The powerhouses. The Googles, Apples, Facebooks, and Government agencies. Over the past decade, however, we’ve started to see a steady shift back towards decentralized information exchanges that the early days of the internet promised. Examples seen across industries include:

• The rise of online learning and distributed, on-demand learning courses⁶
• Increasing popularity of remote/hybrid work environments⁷
• Growing viability of decentralized finance (DeFi) and federated transaction models (e.g., digital currencies, smart contracts, etc.)
• Pressure from retail traders (e.g. meme stocks) on large financial institutions through the power of a decentralized community

Even the DOD, who’s responsibilities include gathering, synthesizing, and retaining valuable information to ensure the security of our country, has generally done so by managing data using a centralized and siloed infrastructure. Though, we’re now starting to see a shift in their approach too. Officials recently issued a directive seeking the use of data as a strategic asset by adapting how they collect, manage, and share data across the agency in a more open, decentralized manner⁸.

What Next? Acknowledging the Need for More Openly-Accessible, Decentralized Data Access.

While we’ve already been on this data journey for over two decades, if not longer, we’ve still barely breached the surface. The volume, variety, velocity, and veracity of data will continue to scale and grow more complex. To use a simple analogy, this can be compared to a spider who has had years and years to spin her web. Whereby each day that passes, she builds more and more entanglements that lead to more sophisticated, yet complex webs.

Looking ahead, as a society we must alter our perception of data and view it as a highly-valuable personal asset, just as we would a house or a car. As we continue down the road towards more decentralized authorities and decision-making abilities, we’ll need to create and adopt new and emerging technologies that facilitate more seamless information-sharing and that are backed by simpler data management capabilities useable by the masses. Only then will we be able to truly democratize knowledge across society and generate profound societal impacts, which might include the following:

• The ability for smaller, generally more resource-constrained organizations to leverage data in their daily decisions and positively impact the level of service provided to consumers (i.e. more diverse competition leading to better products/services for consumers)
• The realization and adoption that an individual’s data is a valuable personal asset, and one that is owned and controlled by the individuals themselves as opposed to large tech enterprises
• An accelerated shift away from government reliance on in-house, legacy systems to more differentiated, commercial solutions that bolster our national security posture and benefit our nation’s citizens (this is already becoming more prevalent)
• Technological advancements that reduce innate bias in AI, Machine Learning, and Analytics applications. Made possible by the ability to train algorithms using more accurate, complete data representations
• A reduction in large-scale misinformation and disinformation campaigns that are generated using unverifiable data and information

While these are just a few of the possibilities, the full-scale impacts are endless and likely unimaginable today, just as with the internet decades ago. One thing is for certain, though. Data inequality is a true cause for concern and it could lead to the worsening of certain societal inequalities.

But if we continue to acknowledge the issue, expand our aperture for and willingness to engage in productive discussion, and increase the time and resources invested in developing relevant tools to address these challenges, we could eventually see a generational shift in how wealth and power are created and sustained across the masses.

It’s something that would completely change the world as we know it.

‍