Decentralized Vs. Centralized Content
What is the difference between decentralized and centralized content? Decentralization and centralization are the two types of structures, that can be found in the government, organization, management and even in purchasing. Pathfynders recognizing this difference, begun their journey of utilizing blockchain in order to create a safe platform with the benefits of decentralized content. However, read on to understand the benefits of Pathfynder’s choice to decentralize.
Centralized = Censored
Centralized content or centralization of authority means the power of planning and decision making are exclusively in the hands of top management. It alludes to the concentration of all the powers at the apex level. These people of power are allowed to make crucial decisions on what can be shared, posted, valued, etc. with little to no input on the decision-making process from outside sources. Though for Pathfynders’ the comparison is between decentralized and centralized structure within social and content platform. A centralized structure gives the platform owners/creators the full power and ability to decide what can be shared, posted, valued, and so on.
A disadvantage of centralizing management control is less responsiveness to users on a platform and a hierarchy of controlling content. This is especially true in more vertically structured organizations where local users have little to no communication with those in charge of filtering content.
Examples: Posting on Facebook and Instagram and a post that is not up to their standards can be taken down. Such as someone attempting to search for health benefits of cannabis but cannot find valuable content due to platforms generally censoring these content.
Decentralized = Free Posting
A decentralized system, on the other hand, delegates authority and ownership throughout the platform to users and stakeholders. In a huge organization with many diversifications, such as the cannabis, fitness, fine art industries, there is evidence for the need for a decentralized system. Having a select few at the top choosing what is valuable and what is not doesn’t directly translate to effective filtering of information for users to find.
An advantage of decentralization is that there tends to be faster decision-making and an ability to adapt to the demographic/topic of interest within a platform. This means that all users have an equal opportunity to gain valuable knowledge from information they deem helpful and develop a user-friendly filter of information because the users are deciding what is valuable to them.
Examples: Users adding/editing content on Wikipedia, Steemit, and Reddit
Lita From Pathfynders Weighs In:
Lita Patel, Director of Product Development, agrees that there is a larger advantage to moving forward with decentralized platforms. Here’s the issue with the centralized content, big companies regulate a majority of the content. Users log on to share their ideas and content, however, when they do, large companies will take that content off due to all “their own company policies.”
Patel says, “That’s the issue right? [Users] come and post everything they want users and their friends/communities to learn and share about, but there’s always that initial fear that it might get taken down because of political agenda.” This has become a growing issue for “topic sensitive” content, yet it’s material that others may find helpful. Cannabis for example, not legal in all states, but due to its increasing popularity for medicinal uses, new users of the product are curious about the plant. But where do you go for valuable and correct information if platforms such as Facebook are regulating such content through centralized systems.
“We [Pathfynders] wanted to create a content platform that users can come onto without that fear,” Patel says. She goes on to ensure users that, “[users] do not have to worry about anything getting taken down or removed. And that’s mainly because of the blockchain technology that we are going to provide.” She and her team under CEO/Founder David Cheng’s visionary leadership hope that blockchain technology will give users validation. Giving users the confidence to share their materials with a platform that they use to communicate with a community. Patel concludes, “It [user’s posted content] will not be regulated or taken down by big business because they themselves are the validators and moderators that will determine what will be stored on the blockchain or not.”