Is Decenternet A Strong Investment Opportunity? My SWOT/Business Analysis of This Ambitious Vision of A Decentralised Internet.

In the third in my series of posts analysing the epic scale blockchain project 'Decenternet' I am going to show a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) of the kind that is commonly created for assessment of businesses and projects. If you are new to this, I suggest reading through my introduction to Decenternet, my [overview of the many propose D-Apps for Decenternet(https://steemit.com/decenternet/@ura-soul/evolving-the-internet-decenternet-s-publicly-owned-decentralized-web-apps-replacing-google-youtube-uber-and-ebay-plus-insurance) and also the white paper. Let's dive in!

The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to expose the key aspects of a project that might present risks and also potential benefits that produce results/rewards. It is common for there to be a mixture of pros and cons to any project and so exposing them as much as possible is an important step towards understanding whether the project is worth investing in and whether or not it needs to be changed before it is considered a reliable investment.

There are numerous important details missing from the documents that I currently have available on Decenternet, so I do not consider this SWOT analysis to be complete by any means - however, I intend that it summarises and explains at a high level, the key points that are going to be of interest to those considering supporting the project i some capacity.

Strengths

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1. Decentralisation of technology and the internet is a logical next step in its evolution and also in the path of humanity growing and evolving towards self empowerment. Most humans are suffering from a loss of power and much of that is due to them having given personal power away to others, such as corporations and governments. The returning of a degree of autonomy to people (without them even needing to do much themselves) is a very strong selling point for this project. While there will be many who, at first, lack the technical knowledge to fully appreciate the benefits of decentralised technology - it will not take long for word to spread of the practical benefits it brings.

2. Lack of competition is relevant here in that while there are projects that have already aimed to achieve similar to the core mission of Decenternet, it appears that none are being so bold as to attempt to completely circumvent, in as many ways as possible, the control agenda that has been imposed on us by corporations. The combination of metaphysical thinking with technology and intent to be free is one that will capture the imagination of many.

3. Open source is hard to control - When projects are entirely in the public domain it is almost impossible to shut them down. Corrupt thinkers in government will need to literally be seen to go against the will of a large number of people in order to control decentralised systems and so they will generally not attempt to do this. It is possible that covert attempts might be made to discredit the system and its operators (as is done against governments who disagree with the agenda of the controllers) - however, the decentralisation means that this cannot really be done effectively without the potential for millions of people to learn the truth of the scheming and to respond accordingly.

4. Massive profit potential - The many D-Apps being proposed essentially make up a range that can replace the majority of the worlds largest online businesses! Trillions of dollars of economic value could be snatched in a relatively short space of time. Not only would this mean that early investors in the project would be greatly rewarded, but so too would general users of the system, since everyone is rewarded just for using Decenternet and lending their computing bandwidth and resources to the collective.

5. Leveraging Technology - New technologies in recent years, that have thrived, tend to often be the result of a combination of pre-existing technologies used in a new way (with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies being a good example (along with smartphones and many other things). Decenternet is a clever combination of several existing technologies too - with the key ingredients of philosophy and a social value system that attempts to insert a feel good factor that is typically missing from such technologies.

6. Mass Appeal & Network Effect - All of these previous features mean that there are many points of interest for many different people - from technical people through to casual users of certain large scale websites. With so many people being able to find something of interest to them, it is inevitable that Decenternet will receive rapid exposure as people share their experiences of it and teach each other new tricks and services they have discovered through its use. Networks that can support their own marketing and growth are able to out perform even the most heavily marketed products that cannot.

7. Solutions to difficult problems - There are many challenges faced by us on Earth that seem to be too big and spread out for any one person to solve. Even if any of us comes up with an idea that can solve one of our systemic problems, it can be very difficult for us to be heard and felt beyond our close friends. How many ideas have come and gone that could have greatly improved all of our lives? Decenternet is deliberately intended to maximise our ability to solve our collective problems - so it is probably only a matter of time before it proves its value in doing so and gains mainstream notoriety in the same kind of way that Bit Torrent and Bitcoin did before it.

8. Greater than the sum of its parts - When a system connects together so many existing systems into one new super system, it becomes something entirely new. The increased efficiency that might be realised by cutting out so many 'middle men' and by also ensuring that so many human support systems 'talk the same language', may quickly make this new approach so financially effective, that its legacy competitors have no choice but to buy in to it or gradually lose market share and face extinction!

9. The backing of Decenternet by ARPANET - the original group behind the internet is a powerful blessing in the minds of many observers. Who better to advocate for an evolutionary web project than the people who invented the web?

Weaknesses

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1. There are numerous technical challenges and a huge amount of work between the point of declaring an intention to create such an ambitious project and being able to say that the goals have been achieved. It remains to be seen whether the team involved are capable of delivering the vision and, indeed, what some of the solutions are to key challenges.

2. One of the key ideas behind Decenternet is that it bypasses government and corporate control of data and thus people. However, nothing that I have seen has made any mention of the fact that governments have direct input into the data streams of the internet at the ISP level. Privacy cannot be said to be maintained if spying eyes are able to completely bypass encryption entirely. 'Man in the middle' attacks are common place where public WIFI is used and the victims have no idea that their data is being viewed by third parties - it is my understanding that those alphabet agencies that have direct access via mirror points in major ISPs are able to perform similar attacks at will. One of the key requirements of this project is that they demonstrate exactly how this weakpoint in the hardware infrastructure of the internet is going to be 'patched' and defended against - so far I have not seen much from them on this at all.

3. The governance aspect of this project equates to the literal application of direct democracy on a global scale. This is something that has not really been achieved for 1000s of years and its implications cannot be underestimated. As with the previous issue regarding the technicalities of privacy on the web, there is a great need to fully explain how exactly this process is going to be protected from manipulation. The results of humanity placing its faith in such a system could be as powerful as the invention of the atomic bomb and so we literally need to have very highest level of documentation possible to explain all the risks and what their solutions are. Failing to deliver evidence that all attack vectors and weak points have been exposed and handled would be to introduce the potential for serious fallout later down the line.

4. Whenever any one group or project is seen to be directing a large number of industries and a vast amount of money, the result is usually for the situation to be perceived to be a centralisation of power. It is ironic that while this project sells the idea of decentralisation, its far reaching implications mean that it could also be seen as a centralisation in the hands of whoever controls the code and policies. Pretty much ever example of a collectivisation of power in human history has quickly or eventually resulted in power being focused into the hands of a few (by one means or another). Again, great focus needs to be put into demonstrating how this cannot happen and so far, the documents produced are not detailed enough to reassure us that this cannot occur here too.

Opportunities

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1. The Decenternet project is pretty much made of opportunity! Pretty much every online project that is of any note can be decentralised and converted into a format that would work on a decentralised version of the internet.

2. There is an ever growing awareness of the needs to decentralise the internet and an ever growing number of people who have the skills to help. The tools of collaboration for open source software are well developed and so it is entirely possible that with enough exposure, this project could accelerate rapidly and harness the creativity of many people.

3. As the legacy systems that the world has inherited are shown more and more to be dysfunctional and unfit for purpose, it is natural that successors will be sought. It appears that the timing of this project is excellent in that regard since so many are now aware of just how much of our world is crumbling due to inefficiency, dishonesty, centralisation of power and incoherent use of logic.

Threats

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1. Anything that poses a major challenge to the status quo will attract many attacks of various forms, attempting to slow its progress and shut it down.

2. The controlling entities on this planet have a long history of dressing up events and projects to appears to be for our benefit, when in fact they are not. Huge wars, political movements, religions and just about every other type of movement/event have historically been little more than psychological operations against the people of this planet - intended to vampire their energy and wealth. While the authors of the Decenternet project acknowledge this directly, this is no guarantee that this project is not another (better hidden) example of the same kind of deception. It is even possible that those involved in the project are unaware of them being manipulated to deliver something that appears to be great, but which ultimately is harmful. Great care must be used here to ensure integrity on all levels - which in turn requires an uncommon level of spiritual balance within those involved.

3. The combined power of governments and corporations whose grip on humanity might be loosened by this project would certainly be enough to slow it down via policy changes or to even produce covert violence against the team's operators. If such a project has a figurehead, as this one currently does - it would not take much to sabotage him and sour public perception against him - resulting the project losing credibility, respect and the trust of the people.

4. File sharing and other intensive web services are typically blocked via terms of service clauses on many web host platforms. It is not beyond the realms of imagination that ISPs who serve bandwidth to home users might start to enact new policies that prohibit the use of Decenternet and similar services. Traffic analysis systems already exist that can be used to identify and block traffic of certain networks, such as TOR and bit Torrent - at a national scale. Careful management is needed to ensure that perception of the network is kept positive and that it is not perceived to be a threat by those in a position to block it!

5. While there isn't a huge amount of competition for this project, it DOES have competiton. EOS, which as already launched and which has received billions of dollars of funding, has a similar goal to Decenternet - albeit with a less focused mission statement and less clear ideology. None the less, @Dan Larimer's vision of 'Making government irrelevant' with EOS does make EOS a direct competitor for Decenternet. Maybe if the two networks can work together we will see this competition minimised.

Summation

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There are many points here that make this project exciting and some which may cause it to collapse. While the idea of a decentralised internet is a strong one, the large number of vested interests and also technical challenges make this a project that is in some senses one on a grand scale similar to something like the great wall of China!

Many of the challenges will not be understood or exposed until the project is under way and so it is difficult to predict with a high degree of accuracy where exactly this is all going. The lengthy timescale that the project roadmap covers (many years) means that this project may grow slowly but surely - however, the explosive potential of its strengths means that equally the opposite may be true.

This is certainly a project I would recommend to potential investors and software developers alike. I expect to find out whether it is successful, especially in light of the development of EOS and other competitors - in the next 18 months.

For More Information On Decenternet and Anuvys:

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• Check out the Decenternet website
• Check out the ANUVYS website
• Follow the Decenternet Facebook page
• Follow Decenternet on Twitter
• Join Decenternet’s official group on Telegram
  
  

_{DISCLAMER: The information contained within this post shall not be taken as a financial advice. I am not a financial advisor and none of your investment decisions should be carried out based on any information presented here. You can lose all of your money by investing. The information presented in this article is for educational and entertainment purposes only.}