Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning and the Future of the Digital Platform

Abstract

The terms decentralized organization and distributed organization are often used interchangeably, despite describing two distinct phenomena. I propose distinguishing decentralization, as the dispersion of organizational communications, from distribution, as the dispersion of organizational decision-making. Organizations can be distributed without being decentralized (and vice versa), and having multiple management layers directly affects only distribution – not decentralization. This proposed distinction has implications for understanding the growth of digital platforms (e.g. amazon.com ), which dominate the global economy in the 21st century. While prominent platforms typically use machine learning as their core technology to transform inputs (e.g. data) into outputs (e.g. matchmaking services), blockchain has emerged as an alternative technological blueprint. I argue that blockchain enables platforms that are both decentralized and distributed (e.g. Bitcoin), whereas machine learning fosters centralized communications and the concentration of decision-making (e.g. Facebook Inc.). This distinction has crucial implications for antitrust policy, which, I contend, should shift both its analysis and its target of action away from the corporate level and focus instead on the data level. Based on this essay’s framework, I make several predictions regarding the future of competition between centralized and decentralized platforms, the evolution of government regulation, and broader implications for managers in the digital economy and for the business schools charged with their education. I conclude with reflections on the opportunity to revive cybernetic thinking for preventing a dystopian future dominated by a handful of platform behemoths.

Efficient Plastic Recycling and Remolding Circular Economy Using the Technology of Trust–Blockchain

“…This technology has been implemented and has achieved positive practice and application in many fields including banking, finance, security, insurance, express, notarization, medicine, music, crowdfunding, dispersed data, intelligent manufacturing, and the IoT. Using the methods of encrypting data, time stamping, distributed consensus, and economic incentives, blockchain technology can achieve decentralized trust-based point-to-point transactions, cooperation, and coordination [27]. It will be easy to predict the scope and need for this technology in the current market for plastic waste recovery and recycling (Table 2).…”

Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Developmental Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging Economic Ecosystems and the Entrepreneurial State

“…Vergne [66] makes an insightful and thorough analysis of the platforms underpinning the new data-driven economy and highlights two key differences that are of relevance in this respect. Namely, that the big-tech giants that have monopolized the surveillance economy are underpinned by ML algorithms that essentially centralize decision-making and communications, even though their delivery models may be distributed (e.g., Amazon and Uber).…”

“…In contrast, Blockchain, as a platform, is mediated by peer-to-peer consent by organizational members-through voting rights-over how that algorithmic reality is established. Blockchain essentially acts as a digital ledger that is decentralized and distributed where authenticated transaction data are securely stored [66] (p. 9). The chains represent a chronological history of transactions that cannot be unilaterally or centrally altered but requires that transactions are queued until consensus is obtained, whereafter the chain is grouped and recorded as a block.…”

“…In sum, whereas ML platforms are centralized and distributed, Blockchain is decentralized and distributed. Citing Vukolić [67], Vergne argues that there are inherent advantages in decentralized platforms such as Blockchain, namely, that they (1) are able to broker trust, a currency that ML platforms are increasingly and noticeably lacking in and ( 2) are inherently predisposed towards reduced scalability, which mitigates against the formation of monopolies, as "services and applications have to be shifted away from the main chain" [66] and are shed from it. In this respect, Blockchain is inherently anti-monopolistic, mitigating against the "data gravity" ( [68] in [66] (p. 3)) that underpins the ML-based platforms upon which big technology platforms are based.…”

Blockchain: implications for Photogrammetry

“…2). With reference to the tech giants Vergne (2020, p. 2) notes: “ Decentralization may have become a corporate cool factor associated with innovativeness or nimbleness ” yet questions whether the likes of Facebook and Google are truly decentralised:

With their growth accelerating due to an inescapable digitalization trend, boosted even further by pandemic lockdowns around the world, the thought of living in a fully platformized society evokes utopia for some – and dystopia for others. A worst‐case scenario would be to have unaccountable corporate behemoths form a platform oligopoly with global surveillance and behavioural prediction capabilities.

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