The Future of Blockchain: Why Do Services like Uber Lose Ground?

🌑 The Dark Side of the Sharing Economy Trend

Instead of becoming the global power that would stand up for transparent pricing and favorable rates for everyone, modern Uber-like aggregators have chosen another strategy. Nowadays, they look more and more like their former rivals from the centralized world. After all, these services try to use their position in their own interests.

And now I’m not talking about the owners of taxi licenses all over the world that are trying to oust Uber, or hotel owners that are confronting Booking.com. I’m not even talking about safety issues that are often considered as one of the main disadvantages of Uber-like services. Manipulation and dictation are much more dangerous problems. While trying to eliminate “greedy and unfair intermediaries”, modern aggregators, it seems, haven’t become a better alternative.

🚕 How does Uber try to fool us?

Many people believed in the idea behind Uber and started to use it as their main taxi service due to the transparent pricing: a fixed amount of money + a rate per kilometer. That was back then when Uber was one of the first to start the sharing economy trend.

As in the early 2000s, the global market is hungry for new economic solutions. The Internet & mobile technologies were the main engines of such a revolution almost twenty years ago. Nowadays, it seems, blockchain is becoming the power that could change the world.

📱 Decentralization 2.0

The desire of states and global corporations for total control and monopolistic management encourage people all over the world to stand against it. Decentralization becomes a global trend - if not on the governmental level than, at least, in people’s minds and hearts.

To thefts of personal data, interference into election processes and unceasing manipulations the world responds with Bitcoin, Wikileaks, BitTorrent protocol and blockchain usage examples. Yet, their aim is not to destroy the world as we know it. Their purpose is to build additional channels of peer-to-peer relationships that will be based on smart and independent algorithms and technologies.

Take BlaBlaCar as the vivid example. The service allows to travel together with drivers but doesn’t set prices. Therefore, prices are formed by the driver and passengers without the participation of the service.

Blockchain is one of these technologies. It consists of blocks - growing, linked together and encrypted lists of records that keep information about all the changes (transactions) in the system. These blocks are stored on thousands of computers all over the world and their authenticity is confirmed by every user in the blockchain system. Thus, data inside the blockchain can’t be retroactively altered or faked.

However, it would be a mistake to think that these changes relate only to cryptocurrency payments. There are many other potential uses for blockchain technology. For instance, it’s potentially suitable for transaction processing, recording of events, public administration, elections, medical records and much more. And we can witness this process soon!

🏆 How Blockchain is Taking Over the World

Despite Blockchain is one of the biggest trends now (and will remain so for the coming years), not all the potential uses for blockchain technology is realized now. Yet, there are already many projects and ideas that outline possible further development. So, what is the future of Blockchain?

📲 Blockchain for marketplaces (like Uber, Airbnb and others)

First and foremost, Blockchain’s impact on marketplaces is going to make a revolutionary change. Just imagine.

Blockchain can replace all the mediators. When you’ll have to find a room (using a decentralized analog of Airbnb) or a taxi cab (using a decentralized analog of Uber or Lyft), the whole process would be even more transparent and cheaper. The workflow of such a decentralized marketplace is also easy as that:

1. You refer to the database that uses Blockchain, and enter your criteria.
2. The system analyzes possible variants and offers them to you.
3. The deal is confirmed by signing a smart contract.
4. Blockchain also helps to make payments using digital channels.
5. You get the needed service from a decentralized marketplace system with the lowest fee.

Sounds fantastic? Not at all. The possibility that such services will appear becomes more and more real every year.

💸 Carrying out money transactions with Blockchain

It usually takes less than a minute and not a penny to deliver an email to another continent. But when it comes to money transactions, some of them require few days of waiting and up to 20% as a fee to be done. Moreover, even the best banking system can’t guarantee you the safety of your accounts. A sudden server crash, banker’s dishonesty or a hacker attack will start a long investigation to find the person responsible for the return of your money. And all of these can happen to your regular bank account as well.

The blockchain offers us an alternative. The whole process of transfer takes a few minutes and costs ten times cheaper. If you keep money and information in the blockchain, the records will never be lost or faked as they are confirmed by all the members and this acknowledgment is stored on their computers.

Secondly, the blockchain also allows transferring the title to a property from a paper form into digital one. It means that the whole process of buying or selling of a property can be handled inside the system, cutting out any middlemen and paperwork.

Moreover, the digital title is more protected against frauds as the ownership or facts of money transactions are verified by thousands of other members. For reducing fraud, it’s also possible to use blockchain-based smart contracts that become unalterable and irreversible once published.

🗳️ Fair elections with Blockchain technology

Some countries are beginning to use electronic voting in elections and referendums. Theoretically, this step should increase voter turnout: you can vote from home at any convenient time and spending just a few minutes.

However, some may try to hack the system. Due to the complexity of e-voting protocols, potential computer errors and hacker attacks, the election commissions in Kazakhstan and the Netherlands returned to paper ballots, ballot boxes and manual vote counting.

Yet, elections that are based on the blockchain are similar to the usual Bitcoin transactions. In such a case, citizens receive special colored coins from the election commission. Then, a voter is free to transfer this coin to the special account that is associated with one or another candidate. To determine the winner, it is enough to check the accounts balance after the election is over.

Since a public blockchain can be analyzed by anyone, each user can track the fate of his vote. So as the members of the electoral committee can deanonymize the voters, some suggest distributing colored coins with the help of blind signatures.

💡 Summary

Now it’s absolutely clear: “decentralization 2.0” is coming. Sooner or later, decentralization will come to public administration, finance, real estate, insurance, transport - into all key areas, and will maintain transparency, freedom and fast speed of work. And, of course, we shouldn’t forget about its main tool - the blockchain.

What is our advice to everyone who is planning new projects and startups? Consider the blockchain as the main trend of the decade that will change the way of our lives and doing business in the nearest future. Take risks and be first where there is no one else yet. The winner takes it all, right?

Inspired by Forbes Ukraine