Many many moons ago, when VAX was still fresh in the memory of early netizens, HTML spawned itself all over TCP/IP, produced an @ sign, populated a DNS system and for the first time in recorded history humanity had free and open, instant access to information anywhere in the world. The last time humanity experienced such a paradigm shifting technological blessing was with the invention of the printing press. We rejoiced and the global village coagulated in the wake of this momentous event.

Distance between places became inconsequential as emails flashed across oceans and continents in seconds, connecting Timbuktu with Beijing, New York and London. E-commerce was born and our shopping behaviour changed forever, forums turned into chat rooms turned into social media. Keeping in touch with friends and family became as simple as going on line and logging in. Telecommuting was born. The Library's Dewie Decimal system gathered dust while search engines started delivering information at the click of a button. The information superhighway manifested infinite possibilities and the future was D438AB rosy.

Or so it seemed...... Lurking in the shadows rubbing it's hands together was the nemesis of freedom, the dark spectre of centralisation as expressed by the phenomenon of the multinational corporation. It's faithful pet, government, was close by on a short leash wearing a studded collar and a gimp suit.

The tactic used to curtail our newfound freedom was an old one. Convenience and the illusion of security are the carrots which were dangled so tantalisingly in front of this new generation of informationauts. Slowly, because time is on it's side, the ringed fence started closing in. Google became a noun, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram became convenient meeting places professing to protect our online data while secretly selling it to the highest bidder and the NSA backdoors were left wide open for the state to surveil us at will. The information which reached us following our convenient Google searches were increasingly shaped, targeted advertising filled our screens and the wrong word in an email quickly saw you being placed on a watchlist. Then net neutrality died and the transformation from netopia to dystopia was complete.

But there's a twist to this tale gentle reader. You see, life will always prevail. The principles upon which life organises itself ensures that it will always find a way and life loves freedom. In basements, backrooms and secret hideouts across the world a motley crew of code Jedis, cypherpunks and crypto-Anarchists were laying the foundation for the re-emergence of a decentralised world true to life's principles. Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote a whitepaper, Bitcoin was unleashed and a subtle but significant shift in the force could be sensed by those in touch.

Skycoin germinated in this primordial soup of idealism when a few visionaries recognised the threat to the ideals Satoshi put forth. Centralisation had infiltrated the resistance and was rearing it's ugly head in the Bitcoin and Ethereum code. Lessons were learned in a manner which would have made Sun Tzu proud and the Skycoin ecosystem, complete with a model for a decentralised, privacy-centric, community owned internet called Skywire was the result of this learning curve.

The cycle is almost complete as we stand on the cusp of the launch of Skycoin mainnet and start glimpsing into the future where net neutrality is once again a real reality. A future where the centralisation onslaught of the global corporation is rendered powerless through brilliant design, where our data truly belongs to us, where raw data can flow unobstructed where it is needed, where we can freely choose our associations and self-organise into self-similar networks of resonance and, best of all, gain freedom from the corporation as we earn income by participating in Skytopia.

The infiltration has been averted, centralisation has been dealt a lethal blow which will see it slowly wither as the monolith is engulfed in a decentralised network of Internet freedom against which it has no defence. Rejoice! For Internet Utopia is upon us thanks to Skycoin.