The Internet Is Broken! Can Blockchain Fix It?

The internet as we know it is broken! When the World Wide Web was launched 32 years ago by Tim Lee-Berns of the CERN foundation, he had a goal in mind of making it free and accessible to everybody.¹ But somewhere along the way, the internet strayed far from this vision. What was meant to be an open digital space has turned into a corporatized, data-harvesting machine, where access to information comes at a price, and true freedom online is disappearing.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee became the inventor of the World Wide Web in 1989 while working as a software engineer at CERN²

Between the ubiquity of paywalls guarding every website (trying to make as much money from users as possible), the countless passwords to remember for every website asking for a login to capture user data, the plastering of commercial ads, ad nauseam, across all forms of content, and the recent explosion of AI-generated content blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s fake, the internet of today is an absolute mess.

And these problems don’t even begin to address some of the bigger issues at hand, such as the growing grasp of big tech on almost all the data found on the internet, as well as a centralization of DNS on the platforms of web giants.

For example, it has been said that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, now control up to 70% of all web traffic, up from 50% in 2014.³ One could argue this is due to the excellence of their service offering, and improvement of their tech, but this has indubitably been at the expense of freedom and anonymity on the web. Furthermore, with the striking down of net neutrality in the US, internet service providers can continue their practice of “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” for big corporations having the money to be able to buy bandwidth, therefore drowning out small internet companies.⁴ In other words, turning the internet into a place where only the wealthiest and most powerful corporations have a voice to be heard.

Alphabet and Meta are recipients of most of the web traffic on the internet at the moment⁵

Another big issue, as mentioned above, is the centralization of the Domain Name System (DNS), which serves as the internet’s phonebook. It is highly centralized and controlled by a few major entities like ICANN, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare, with GoDaddy controlling up to 11.62% of the domain registrations on the internet.⁶ That means that every website owner is at the mercy of these big corporations, and can have their site suspended, censored, or transferred on a whim. For example, in 2010, the US government seized 82 domains in a single day through ICANN’s jurisdiction, without trial or due process. This was possible because the organizations that administer .com, .net, and .org domains—like VeriSign—are based in the United States, giving the government authority over them.⁷

And what’s worse is that these domain names are never truly owned. They are simply rented for a yearly fee, meaning that website owners must continually pay renewal fees to keep their domains active. If payments stop, the website can disappear in flash, which fuels the cybersquatting industry, where predatory buyers scoop up expired domains and ransom them back to original owners for absurd prices.⁸ Needless to say, the domain names market has become highly commercialized, centralized, and rendering true digital sovereignty nearly impossible under the current system.

As the problems of the normal internet piled up, Web3 emerged as the next evolution of the web. Coined in 2014, Web3 promised a new era of online freedom; one where users could truly own their data, control their digital assets, and escape Big Tech’s grip. And with its arrival, a new promise was made: there could, in fact, exist an alternative internet where users truly own their digital assets, where censorship is impossible, and where central authorities could no longer seize control of online identities.

However, lamentably, the movement got side-tracked, and this Web3 vision failed to reach its original vision of a decentralized, open source, and user-controlled web. Instead, from what we’ve seen so far, it became a breeding ground for hype-driven DeFi schemes, NFT cash grabs, and memecoins. Worse, many so-called 'decentralized' projects rely on centralized AWS and IPFS servers, proving they’re no better than the systems they claim to replace! Indeed, we traded privacy, self-ownership and data control for convenience, greed and speculation!

NFTs are a prime example of the failures of the Web3 space, driving interest purely on speculation and hype alone!⁹

So the search goes on for an alternative internet that puts the power back in the users’ hands. But wait…that project is already out there, flying under the radar of most people. It’s called Qortal, and it is realizing the idea of a new, decoupled web, where there is no censorship possible, no data harvesting possible, and where users can exchange data peer-to-peer, with no middlemen! Sounds too good to be true? Would it sound even more unbelievable if you learned that it was live since 2020, and could be installed on your favorite device, such as an operating system laptop, Chromium browser extension, or even Android phone? Well, it’s not that incredible, since it’s the truth!

Unlike the countless token-driven projects that have flooded Web3, Qortal launched with no ICO, no pre-mine, and no venture capital backing. No insiders, no early whales, no pay-to-win schemes, just true decentralization from day one! And it’s 100% open-source, meaning anyone can inspect the code, contribute, or even fork the project. On top of that, everyone can run a full node on Qortal, meaning it’s no longer only big players who can validate transactions on the blockchain.

There’s already so much you can do on Qortal. It truly is an alternative internet!¹⁰

To summarize, Qortal has created a self-sustaining, censorship-proof infrastructure designed for long-term adoption, not short-term profit. Its approach to Web3 has been spotless: a fair launch, a distributed peer-to-peer network where anyone can contribute to the blockchain and earn rewards, an open source codebase, real utility that you can use today, and a parallel economy based on trust and transparency. Now this is the kind of blockchain infrastructure which has the potential to offer an alternative to the normal internet. And with many Q-Apps already built, offering real use cases, all powered by the QORT coin, it is already proving to be one! Install it today!

1. Dinmore, N. (2023, April 30). 30 years of a free and open Web. CERN. https://home.cern/news/news/computing/30-years-free-and-open-web

2. Thinking Heads. (2017, August). Tim Berners-Lee at a conference [Image]. Thinking Heads. https://thinkingheads.com/en/speakers/tim-berners-lee/

3. Cuthbertson, A. (2017, November 2). Facebook and Google control 70 percent of web traffic. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-google-internet-traffic-net-neutrality-monopoly-699286

4. Wheeler, T. (2023, October 30). Don't be fooled: Net neutrality is about more than just blocking and throttling. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/dont-be-fooled-net-neutrality-is-about-more-than-just-blocking-and-throttling/

5. Visual Capitalist. (2024, July). Most visited websites in 2024 [Image]. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-most-visited-websites-in-2024/

6. Domain Name Stat. (n.d.). Domain name registrars list. Domain Name Stat. https://domainnamestat.com/statistics/registrar/others

7. Kravets, D. (2012, March 6). Uncle Sam: If it ends in .com, it's seizable. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-sites/

8. Mysterium VPN. (2025, February 17). What is cybersquatting? A deep dive into domain name hijacking. Mysterium VPN. https://www.mysteriumvpn.com/blog/what-is-cybersquatting

9. Studio North. (2022, August). Web3 and NFTs: What are they and what do they mean for businesses and brands? [Image]. Studio North. https://studionorth.co.uk/web3-and-nfts-what-are-they-and-what-do-they-mean-for-businesses-and-brands/

10. Qortal Project. (n.d.). Q-Share Homepage [Screenshot]. Qortal Hub.