The moment I got into decentralization, blockchain and web3, I became a big fan of these topics, and they gave me more incentive to keep building on decentralized infrastructure. I don’t want to sound “cliché”, but it’s really important that you know in depth what I’ll be talking about. In recent years, decentralization has become an essential milestone in the development of the future internet because it has brought companies and many consumers great benefits. But what makes it so important?

Why is decentralization so important?

Decentralized storage is one of the most important benefits brought to us by web3 as it changes the way companies distribute and archive their data. Popular companies and organizations (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) handle centralized data storage, meaning the storage provider has access to our information and does not guarantee any security or control over our own data, leaving us exposed to the invasion of privacy. Decentralized infrastructure solves this by offering a cheaper distribution system, enabling users to choose which nodes store their data without giving custody to a third party. Arweave is a perfect example. This is one less concern for developers like me who care about who accesses our private information. That’s great, right?

Another upside to decentralized infrastructure is decreased censorship. Hasn’t it ever happened to you when you talked about a particular topic, and social media censored or deleted your post? I know of several cases. And this is the primary pain point of centralization, and what decentralization solves for us. Decentralization provides users the opportunity to be open source, build community, contribute to great projects, and take part of “web3”.

Blockchain has had a boom in recent years, growing its user base and getting many people excited about building the future of the web that will undoubtedly bring (and do bring) significant benefits. There are real-world cases where decentralization becomes essential, and political, economic, or social issues depend on it.

Where it’s headed in 2023

It’s almost 2023 and we have a very promising future ahead of us when it comes to decentralization. But, there are a few things that you might not have known about until now that haven’t been sufficiently explained. Hint: it is a very useful tool for developers. Can you guess? Yes, I’m talking about the FE (frontend) stack. I’ve seen web3 being used in several cases (DAOs, DeFi, etc) but we forget that many decentralized projects in web3 are still operating with permissions, custodians and giving data to many organizations just because their FE is not 100% decentralized yet. Do you remember the recent censorship Tornado Cash experienced? The problem was the lack of a decentralization frontend, and probably if they had operated with a decentralized CDN they would not have suffered censorship and limitations. So, how can we start building web3 solutions to real problems like these?

It will be a difficult and long road for everyone to adapt from web2’s flow to web3’s. This transition will not only take time but also require real solutions. And I have no doubt that it will soon be possible with Fleek! Because we’re working on building a censorship-resistant decentralized content delivery network (CDN) known as Fleek Network, and adding new features to the existing Fleek, which will solve many of the above pain points I mentioned. We strive to drive decentralization for all FE stacks building the effective solution that developers and users need today.

Traditional CDN’s make platforms and their users vulnerable to censorship and deplatforming. Given CDN’s serve an increasingly meaningful percentage of internet traffic, they play a huge role in the global flow of information. It’s as important as any other piece of the stack in terms of needing decentralization.

What is Fleek doing to solve all the drawbacks that centralization in FE brings us today? The Fleek platform focuses on the storage aspect as I mentioned at the beginning, which is undoubtedly an important layer for users to own their own data. Everything you store in IPFS with Fleek is automatically archived in Filecoin, the decentralized storage network to ensure that it exists outside Fleek in a decentralized manner.

With Fleek Network users won’t have to worry about censorship or their private information being exploited since they will have more security and confidentiality when using the Internet. And the best part of Fleek Network? Is protocol agnostic, meaning it can accelerate content from any underlying storage protocol or provider (ex. IPFS, Filecoin, Arweave, AWS S3, etc.). In the future Fleek Network will also add support for dynamic content, further widening the scope of protocols it can accelerate content for.

I hope this article has helped you understand the fundamental importance of decentralization in the present and future. We will be building with enthusiasm and hope you join us in riding this exciting new wave.