This is my first post in a series of technologies that I think the blockchain might be able to disrupt. I expect this series to be interactive as I am not an expert in all things blockchain. These posts are intended to start a conversation and get people discussing blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Let's start our dialogue with a broad overview followed by a problem that we would like to solve.
The blockchain has the potential to change the world on the same scale that the internet has. The internet connected everybody, but a lot of these connections are made through centralized servers that act as intermediaries. The internet has allowed companies to collect massive amounts of data. A lot of this data is also stored on centralized servers. What if all of these connections could be made peer to peer? What if all of the data could be stored in a decentralized way? What if we could create a decentralized platform to build communities and collaborate?
Could we use the blockchain to create a decentralized version of Discord? We know it is possible to create blockchain based chat apps as a whole host of chat apps exist, but discord also provides voice chat. Why doesn't this technology already exist? A lot of communities on Steemit and Utopian use Discord.
What kind of technical problems would we need to overcome to create a decentralized version of Discord? What would the incentive structure look like? What would be the advantages of a decentralized version of Discord? What would be the disadvantages? Please post your thoughts in the comments.