https://medium.com/@drkoepsell_62756/blockchains-as-engines-of-liberation-76ccba1bbe3b

The promise of computers and networks has changed dramatically over time. In the 70s, as the PC began to penetrate markets and imaginations, they were envisioned as tools that could unleash our creativity and turn everyone into a creator. Now, they are primarily used as devices for more consumption, while also making us commodities. Blockchains hold the promise of helping us move back toward the objectives and ideals that once motivated many of us to embrace them.

I was an early adopter of computers all my life, gifted by my parents with access to my first computer while a young teen, my first was a TRS-80 Model I around 1983, when I was just 14. I had become enthralled with computers when, playing at my friend’s house, I was allowed to hack away at his dad’s Model II in his home office, and ignored my friend for hours trying to make it do things in BASIC, discovering and exploring the Poke command, diving for my first time into cyberspace. I yearned to have my own, and justified it to my parents as a tool with which I would be able to better do homework (it wasn’t really, at that point). My parents acceded, and thus began a journey that would span decades.