Comparing and Contrasting between Facebook and Steemit [@yohan2on]

Before 2008, the word decentralization looked like a very strange word to people as we all believed in a centralized government and how it made thing happen but then, the 2008 financial crisis came to being and people started to lose trust in the centralized banking system and then the centralized way of government when they decided to bail-out crumbling banks with new money printed from nowhere. It was in this that a whitepaper came into circulation by Satoshi Nakamoto and then a decentralized medium of exchange came into existence (Bitcoin).

Do not also forget that before the crisis, we were all using cetralized platforms for everything we needed including social media platforms which i will be looking into today.

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What are Centralized Applications

Having one central database from different nodes owned by one entity and controlled for the purpose of the entity will be the basis of centralized platforms. Before Ethereum, we love our social media platforms even though they were centralized and they told us lies. Facebook came with the hopes of allowing people to connect with one another, no matter the distance at which they were, twitter brought about quick and short messaging which could be seen around the globe, and so on. These platforms were doing well (in fact, they are still doing well) with most of the needed applications are centralized but in recent times, people have started to shift to a decentralized application platform.

Decentralized Applications

The applications that exist on the blockchain and run on the blockchain saving their data in different p2p nodes instead of single storage and being controlled by a single entity. Decentralized applications became a thing with ETH smart contract and since then, dAppps have shaken the world of centralized system

Facebook vs Steemit

Facebook

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This is where I am coming to. If you haven't used Facebook before, it is either because you are not a fan of social media or you do not have a gadget that can browse the internet. Facebook came with the aim of connecting people with one another but then the business model of Facebook goes beyond that as Facebook is known to be an advertising and marketing company.

Facebook being a centralized company and a centralized application has proven to be a company with very low integrity as it has been involved in several scandals such as;
The Cambridge Analytical scandal proves that Facebook sells our data, Buying up smaller companies that are supposed to be competitors so as to be dominant in the market.

Facebook, being a centralized application is known to;

• Mine User Data without User Authorization
• Misuse users data for profit-purposes
• Collects images using a Facial Recognition Database
• Using “Shadow Profiles” to Collect Non-User’s Data.

Facebook Downside

• Facebook doesn't monetize contents and only favors big marketers
• Targetted marketing
• Data breach since its data is stored in a central location
• Data is owned by Facebook
• No self-governance
• Partly encrypted as it doesn't exist on the blockchain

Steemit

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The decentralized social media platform built on the blockchain has been existing since 2016 which rewards users for their contributions and activities on the platform when users create content and get an upvote from users on the platform.

With Steemit, nobody owns the blockchain where its data is stored as its data is stored on decentralized nodes on the blockchain which gives nobody the right to owns your data. Unlike centralized social media like Facebook, Steemit has a tokenomics which helps to incentivize users when they create content on the blockchain.

Steemit doesn't sell users' data as the data is publicly displayed on the blockchain ledger and thanks to the Blockchain protection, users' privacy is secured. Contents are not tailored and filtered to certain people for advertising purposes but rather, users can view whatever content they want at will. With Steemit, it is easy to process the reward system/wallet giving users a feeling of being part of the community and part of the ecosystem.

Conclusion

Since I became a part of the decentralized ecosystem, I have preferred a decentralized application to a centralized application for reasons of flaws from centralized applications with respect to privacy, security, data mining, and selling of data.
Thanks for reading.

Cc:
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02
@steemcurator04
@yohan2on