Google or Facebook out of business?

Anyone thought about the possibility of Google or Facebook going out of business within 10 years? More precisely, Google/FB’s ad business dies of competition. I may sound having lost of my mind, but just think about what happens to IBM in front of MSFT or Blockbuster in front of Netflix or Kodak in front of the digital photos! I know no one has ever talked about it, so let me be the first one on record to say this. If Google and FB keep their current business model for ads, it may soon be replaced by someone with much creative and innovative ways of doing business. A new revolutionary technology has emerged, which can be compared to the birth of the Internet 20 years ago. It is called blockchain (BC) technology. If you haven’t heard about the term BC, you must have heard about bitcoin, right? That’s the most famous and first ever crypocurrency based on the BC technology.

I’m not an IT guy that I can tell you exactly what the BC is about. But roughly, it is a booking system for records of electronic transactions. Each transaction is called a block and is added up to the previous verified blocks to become a chain like computer codes, hence the name comes. Up until now, all the booking records are stored centralized in one location and therefore are very vulnerable to cybercrime like hacking. BC has revolutionized to allow the booking records to be stored not in one or two computer systems but across the whole Internet via thousands of computer nods. That’s why it is so safe that there is zero chance the BC itself can be hacked. Don’t be confused about the stories about hacking of the bitcoin exchanges. The exchanges (like banks) can be hacked but not the BC itself.  It is estimated that a hacker will need 1$ billion worth of the computing power to hack the BC across the Internet and it has to be done within 10 minutes. In theory it is possible but in reality zero chance. This decentralized model can virtually eliminate cybercrime. That’s why you will start to hear more and more businesses will heavily invest in this technology. The financial business is on top of the list as they are burdened by all the transaction records that are being hacked every day. That’s why JPMorgan has recently announced that it will invest $9 billion in the blockchain technology. Microsoft is also moving into it now. Very soon this will become the new norm for doing business, just as what the Internet has become to date.

So back to the topic today. Why Google or Facebook may lose competition with the current ad business model? Well, they are making money by acting as a middle man basically by connecting the companies with the customers via their ads and as the result, they get the commission. They are really doing great as of now but this business model may become obsolete pretty soon just like what happened to the newspaper industry for the paper-based ads. Some very smart people have started to develop a system based on the BC technology that can virtually eliminate the middle man but directly connect business to customer. You may have never heard about Basic Attention Token (BAT) which is probably the first digital advertising business based on the BC technology. It has the aim to grow to compete with the dominating ad companies like Google or Facebook by using a totally new and innovative business model. Let me just be clear, the whole BC technology is just at its infancy, even the early stage of the infancy. I don’t mean that this BAT company will necessarily succeed as it wishes. But the point is about the overall trend for the BC technology. I’m pretty sure, if not BAT, there will be some other BC based advertising companies emerge and grow and eventually take over and replace the current business model applied by Google and Facebook. It is just a matter of time. Mark my words, either Google/Facebook change their business model to employ the BC technology or they will be lost just like IBM or Kodak within 10 years!