The evolution of networking capabilities has real impacts on many industries, including economic changes. Technologies that facilitate increased networking capabilities include telecommunications, the internet of things, digital transformation, cloud computing, social media, peer-to-peer networking, etc.
What Is Decentralizing Technology?
Decentralization in technology has become somewhat a buzzword over the last few years. Decentralizing technology means shifting from concentrated to distributed modes of production and distribution of goods and services.
Many industries and more so organizations have had to pivot much faster than they would have done to respond to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many companies were exploring the options of decentralization and digital transformation, but they never thought it would come this fast. One of the major changes companies have had to make is facilitating remote working, which has brought new opportunities.
When we look at the dawn of industrial civilization, we can see that technological decentralization started to occur through vast technological innovation. For instance, decentralizing manufacturing created more jobs in local areas enabling more people to access middle life. Such inventions culminate in the technological decentralization age of today.
The most extensive technological network came from the idea of decentralization that a communications network could be fractured into small pieces and still work as if it wasn’t reliant on a single source of power and data.
The advantage of the first phase of decentralization is that people can access information and communication through the internet. People can express themselves at a fast speed over unimaginable distances; hence socialization, education, and participation in commerce became faster, programmable, and more manageable.
However, there is still uneven distribution of power, data, and value. Billions of people cannot access the global economy due to centralized systems that do not accept their credentials. Due to inequalities, more than one billion people are still invisible and unable to use services like education, finance, social protection, and healthcare.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated decentralization with remote working, schooling, investing, and so forth dominating today’s world. It would be stupid to think that the internet’s revolution is done. After all, it is still a new technology, and it is just beginning to converge with blockchain technology to extend the speed, reachability, flexibility, and automation capacities.
Technology-based networks created the foundation for the current level of connectivity and networking capabilities for societal benefits. They include the internet boom of the 1980s, telecommunication, and digital transformations of businesses and society. The increasing internet of things and social media use is further extending the networking capabilities in society.
The internet came to be as a way of decentralizing communications, while in more recent years, cloud computing has decentralized storage and blockchain technology decentralized cryptocurrencies. The increasing decentralization of technology is not only benefiting companies but societies as well. The internet holds together decentralized networks; therefore, countries with higher bandwidth connectivity can support these networks and workforces.
The Bottom Line
Many organizations now see the importance of maintaining a technological model that has enabled them to stay afloat through the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology decentralization may also help eliminate disruptions in the future, as Russell Haworth – a digital transformation expert – agrees.