On most platforms and within most organizations you are going to find bad apples. The bigger the organization and the more vague the principles and rules, the more this is going to be a factor.
TON is officially The Open Network after starting out as the Telegram Open Network. Much work has been done on this relatively new but technologically advanced blockchain. It holds much promise for the future of a “Web 3.0”.
In layman’s terms, we understand this “Web 3.0” as a new more decentralized web technology promising un-censorable web sites, anonymity via proxies and VPN, and possibly encryption for privacy.
This is all well and good for the “geeks” or the young generations who were born with a mobile phone in their hand, and the future babies that are being born with chip implants in their brains. For the rest of us, it is a hard sell.
The Human Factor
For example, let us take financial transactions: in the old system that some of us enjoyed, we would barter, exchange gold, silver, cows, milk or other valuables for whatever we needed, and where possible we were even self-sufficient families.
Forward to more modern times, money was introduced in paper and then digital form, and power shifted from the communities to the centralized printing presses, banks, and government institutions.
As with all things there is a plus and a minus, a positive and a negative side.
We could say that a plus is being able to be lazy, and pursue a life or entertainment and ease, leaving decision-making, dispute and conflict solving and other things to the various new authorities, without dying as a result.
A minus is that such abrogation of responsibilities and former duties, leads to a loosening of values and principles, a weakening of character, mental and physical being, and a centralization of power in all areas of life where it has been ceded.
In comes yet another promise of new technology to our rescue, to bring back some decentralization, put power back some more into individuals hands, for example being able to transact worldwide in seconds without any third party.
Or, more accurately, with the “only third party” being the “blockchain” — this infallible, immutable, un-deletable, cold, “permanent”, un-forgeable being made up of computers all over the place without any central point of control.
Erosion of Trust
Thus, in an age where trust has all but eroded between people in these modern “happy” (?!) environments, where families, tribes and nations no longer exist, but tramps, cockroaches and rats co-exist, we can now trust the technology itself.
No need any more to have a bank to store your money safely, you can do this on the blockchain. No need to have a manager to restore access to your account (or take it away) because you yourself can manage your keys, if you are careful.
The problem with all this, of course, is that it is human beings that “code” this super new technology, and human beings can be fallible in an innocent sense and even in a malicious sense: the code is only as good as those writing it.
Fine, let us assume, these are honest coders, and their open source chains and blocks have been examined for any signs of slavery (block and chain?) or bad things like stealing your money via “smart contracts” that are smarter than you.
In this case, we may have a really safe and secure blockchain, where anything you write is permanent and cannot be edited or deleted, anything you record is permanently visible for all, and every transaction you make, likewise.
Assuming that is all OK, we are happy for those that we make payments to, to also be able to see every single payment we have made, and will make, as well as our balances. Let’s say we’re smart enough to make use of that appropriately.
It still does not prevent applications (software “apps”) from being written that make use of the blockchain, but are themselves run by people with questionable values, or even outright criminals.
It isn’t enough to get everyone using a blockchain such as The Open Network if the usual “cryptocurrency” culture is all one of “don’t trust anyone, this is a haven for scammers”, and “do your own research” and “you’re on your own”.
Instead, all those who wish to advance and take advantage of such as TON and build an “ecosystem” will have to pay good attention to the minus points of “decentralization” and make it a plus.
Decentralization: not just a buzz word
What decentralization actually means, in full, is that more and more people, you, me and everyone else, needs to take responsibility and not pass it off on others. This means, providing customer service, education, and assistance to others.
This awful new concept of taking responsibility, new to most people after generations of having surrendered it, also necessitates, among other things, exposing and sidelining those bad actors who steal from or abuse others.
There is the fair share of them on TON just as on probably many other blockchains. Some of them are even being promoted actively on ton.org website, which of course is the most centralized and powerful thing at the moment in TON.
If you own TON.org on the web 2, which everyone now uses, you get to say what can be trusted, and what not, and you get to censor, via those channels on Telegram that you promote, all such uncomfortable truths.
SmackaTon
This is why perhaps we need a “smackaTon” and not just contests and hackatons, and not just rewarding and prioritizing and forgiving developers because they are so cool at coding or providing a slice of the “ecosystem”.
If there is an Open Network, its players, when they misbehave, should be exposed, and certainly the one holding the keys to ton.org should not promote them, nor the groups of vested interests that run the TON “Community” channels.
There should be several ecosystems within the wider ecosystem, so that people can judge by their experiences, and by the criteria used to classify projects, products and services as trustworthy or not.
The Big Bad Centralized Ton.org
For example, TON.org promotes at least one group directly which has a long history of providing no support at all to their aggrieved users, and also gives authority to a ton.app site to “catalog” any and all things related to TON.
But this is very bad: it is again centralization and favoritism. Instead, ton.org should link to multiple directories, in fact, any and all directories, that have their own published methods of rating and verifying or authenticating all things TON.
This then empowers the customer, consumer, client or user, with a variety of choices, and they can evaluate the pros and cons of each such directory service, and their experiences with it.
Not putting customer service and satisfaction as an important factor in user experiences, and removing publicity from all those — no matter who they are — who do not meet such basic benchmarks, is not going to get “mass adoption”.
Such bad experiences have indeed produced projects, products and services that want to do better, and fill in those gaps. Such should be supported and promoted too, and not side lined to existing projects which have questionable histories.
Keeping the bastards honest
At TON NEWS we therefore will look at such things in more details via research and exposure: there is already widespread knowledge among developer groups on Telegram about past bad behavior of various groups which still curry favor.
It may look like it is putting people off TON however, it is a necessary part of growing up, you have to smack a naughty child, to make it understand the limits and nurture it towards the best behavior.
This will benefit all honest people and projects and give TON a much better reputation than that currently attached to “crypto”.
TON NEWS is run mostly by a refugee who lost loved ones and most assets in a terrible calamity of war. There is no financial benefit in doing so, it is provided as a service to help educate, without fear or favor, on The Open Network.
Please donate what you can in return, thank you!