Control Innovation, Control The World
Hello there! Is the crypto market bring you down? Are you feeling sad about your portfolio? Are you beginning to doubt the technological innovation that is the blockchain? Good. Hopefully, you got that short-term tunnel vision out of your system and are a long term investor now. If you sold, I hope you enjoy the smell of fiat paper. That's one thing cryptocurrency will never have. The smell of wrinkled paper and hands. But for those still on board, let's discuss your wise decision incase you still have not taken the time to think this whole thing out.
This picture has multiple meanings, find the one that works best for you.
Unfortunately, this is not really a post on valuation or a hype piece on why cryptocurrencies are the best thing since sliced bread. This is a post on technology and the power it gives to some people while taking it away from others. Now you might wonder how technology takes away power from others, and that's a great first thing to wonder about. You might have not wondered about it, but that's where we are heading.
Take the television, for example. Who received power from television and whom did television take power away from? Well, television gave power to advertisers and media conglomerates and took power away from the consumer. How? Well, the end user of a television now has to endure commercials and advertisements while also getting hooked to a medium that literally wastes their time.
Prior to television, was print media. And while print media could also throw in advertisements and also be a waste of time, the entertainment and addiction factor of the media was certainly less. So, at the end of day, the consumers lost and the companies that built themselves around the innovation gathered control and lots of money.
Now ordinary people could have benefitted from such innovation if they had stake in it. So, if they bought part of the company before their product gained mass adoption, they would also be on the receiving end of lots of money and given the opportunity to live life on their terms. By controlling a stake in innovation, they would be more able to control their future and pursue their desires more effectively.
Unfortunately, such opportunities to control innovation have been quite rare. And opportunities to control innovation prior to the secret getting out have been even rarer. Until recently, one would have to be the innovator or one of the principle investors to reap the rewards. Now, if you are an accredited investor, you can get into some startups before they go public and get the large rewards during the company's massive growth.
But to most ordinary people access is still very limited. Sure, you could have bought Amazon in the 90's, but there was no indicator that it was any better than Pets.com. Both companies shipped specific supplies across the country and built e-commerce sites. One exists today, the other doesn't. There was innovation there, but it was hard to pick the winners. In more obvious cases, like Facebook or Twitter, the majority of the rapid growth occurred while the companies were private.
But even then, had you invested in the big internet companies once they became public, one would still be way better off than not investing. Google, Facebook, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon took advantage of the innovation of the internet. They are now some of the most valuable companies in the world and some of the fast growers. Even those who got in late have still taken nice gains of the innovation even though they didn't have early access.
But who were the losers of the this technological innovation? The non-investors and non-innovators. Google feeds us ads and we willingly subject our selves and give up our information so we can watch YouTube videos and perform Google searches. The same applies for Amazon and Netflix. It's even worst for Facebook. The whole point of the website is to create content to integrate with their advertisements.
So, what is the point? Well, let's come around full circle. Back to cryptocurrencies. For the first time, you can easily get stake in a major innovation. That innovation being blockchain technology. This innovation validates information and secures that information in an immutable way. To put simply, the blockchain securely and permanently stores information.
You control the innovation and you gain control of the environment. You control enough of the innovation and you can control the world. Who controls the world now? Many would argue the Googles and Facebooks that dominate the content that is usurping the content of the past. People are watching internet videos and reading posts rather than reading the newspaper or watching television.
Why not jump on the next technological wave, at the very beginning? When everyone else jumps in, they might not see you as a genius or an innovator, but you will have profited off of spotting the innovation ahead of the adoption curve. Many people end up living life in the control of others who innovated and then become the victims of such technology. Sure, the technology may improve their life, but it doesn't enhance their opportunities. It gets in the way of them.
So, have a good day. Enjoy the ride. There will be many doubters at this point in the adoption curve. They seek all of the benefit without any of the sacrifice or risk. They seek to enrich themselves rather than see the long term vision and enrich their opportunities. And at the end of the day, those who take opportunities achieve true freedom, while those who ignore them end up watching cat videos in cramped apartment where you pay for the rent through the blockchain.