The Decentralization impact of Technology has been largely positive. Firstly we must start off by acknowledging that decentralization of information with the help of the internet has helped the world become a much more efficient place and it has helped emerging countries in particular.
Take for example, the invention of fast shipping from one corner of the world to another. Earlier when the means of transportation were fairly limited and people couldn’t transport good and themselves from one place to another or from one country to another quickly, they were limited in their mobility. However with the invention of steam ships, this barrier of mobility was drastically reduced. This further led to globalization which benefited emerging countries a lot. Countries such as China etc became export power houses that exported a lot of everyday items from toys to clothing. This significantly helped China’s economy and has helped it become a super power in the recent years.
Similarly with the invention of internet, information could flow from one part of the world to another within milliseconds. This helped the IT boom take place in India. Companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro etc are multi billion dollar giants today who wouldn’t have existed had it not been for the invention of the internet. This in turn has helped millions of middle class Indians get access to well paying IT jobs.
The export boom and the IT boom have both been possible thanks to decentralization. With the improvement in transport technology, the world became decentralized in terms of production and consumption. It was no longer necessary for every country to produce the goods it consumed. Countries with cheaper labor could produce the required goods and export it to richer countries for consumption. The same goes with the IT boom. With the explosion of internet and improvement in global connectivity, a lot of back-end IT work could be done by countries that had cheaper skilled labor. It was no long necessary for every company to maintain its own IT infrastructure. They could just outsource the work to countries like India which have cheaper labor.
Apart from the obvious economic benefits realized from globalization thanks to the decentralization impact of technology, it has also played a vital role in the dissemination of information. Earlier a select few newspapers had control over the news that got circulated and the opinions of people. But with the invention of internet and its subsequent reach worldwide, citizen journalism found a firm footing. These days news is first shared over social media websites like Whatsapp, Facebook etc before it gets picked up by the larger news organizations.
Tech Fusion 