Why Africa shouldn’t leapfrog the Blockchain revolution?
Africa has a history of leapfrogging technology revolutions. Few Africans experienced the hustle of moving from office to office when trying to connect one’s home to a landline telephone network, or the pain of dialing modem cables to connect to the internet. To most Africans, their first encounter with the internet was through the mobile phone. This phenomena of jumping entire generations of clumsy technologies to embrace cutting-edge devices is called technology leapfrogging.
The problem with leapfrogging is that by the time you join the fray, your technology will have to depend upon protocols, platforms, standards and infrastructure that have been setup by firmly established players in the industry. This leaves late entrants into the industry with limited say on the roadmap the technology should take.
Take a look at the mobile App market for example. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, early pioneers in the industry, control upwards of 95% of the mobile app market. With limited opposition, these two app vendors set global rules for how apps are created, built and sold. Even all-conquering Microsoft failed to break through this duopoly.
Absolute monopolies have their advantages. For example the infrastructure standards that they set can lower the costs for new entrants into the industry. But most will try to set rules and protocols that benefit their own platforms — not that of new competitors. You must have followed the news about Google play and Apple’s appstore manipulating search results in order to favour their own apps.
There is an advantage to being first in the industry. It’s not an absolute advantage as can be seen in the case of MySpace.com, but it is still a huge advantage, as is the case with Airbnb.com and Uber.com. Blockchain is a ten year old industry and its future standards, protocols and infrastructure are currently being set. It’s time Africa looked beyond the frenzy of earning quick money from cryptocurrencies and started exploring and using blockchain to solve some of Africa’s troubling issues, like healthcare, banking, democracy and education.
Conclusion:
The old saying — the early bird catches the worm. Blockchain is bound to change every industry known to humanity, from real estate, law and finance — to healthcare. The earlier Africa gets into the blockchain industry the better its chances of mastering the technology and adapting it for the African market.
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Published at Sat, 08 Feb 2020 11:40:06 +0000
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