#whitepaper Previous: [[1- The Meta]] We live in an age of exponential change. Technological progress is disrupting every facet of society, displacing and democratizing power. With web2, large corporations in many industries have lost their influence. The power of old special interest groups over technology, art, and commerce is now considerably less. Before web2, recording companies produced the music, publishers published the books, and Hollywood made the movies. Technological know-how was exclusive to organizations and kept hidden from the public. Web2 enabled the proliferation of content, displacing old industries, and allowing everyone to become publishers. Today, knowledge is available to all, for free. Web2 enabled participation but captured attention in monopolies. Big Tech replaced old industries as the new centers of influence. With centralized control it created systems to capture the maximum amount of attention possible and monetized our data. They made the decisions on censorship and free speech, choosing who gets to be heard, playing the kingmaker.  While Big Tech was emerging, some saw the negative effects of centralized power in the finance industry. Bitcoin began in 2009 with this note from Satoshi Nakomoto in the genesis block:  > The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks With it the modern decentralization movement began. Today, blockchain decentralization expands from the domain of money to other domains. With blockchain information is retained, unmediated, uncensored, and unalterable. Big Tech’s hold on attention is being disrupted and a [[3- The Bleeding Edge of Organizations and the Big Problem|new model of operation]] for human affairs emerges. Next: [[3- The Bleeding Edge of Organizations and the Big Problem]]