Given what recently happened with STEEMIT, HIVE and good old Justin Sun, one can only wonder why he was trying to centralise the STEEM blockchain.

Could it be that centralised publishing platforms are better than their decentralised counterparts?

Good question. 

Let's try to answer it.

So what is a decentralised publishing platform? 

That has a relatively simple answer, but for those who might not know the answer, a decentralised publishing platform is one where there is no agreed upon "owner". It isn't owned by anyone, and is accessible to everyone. 

They usually adopt their own token and have their own blockchain. An example is Steemit and just recently Hackernoon.

On these kinds of platforms, you can say whatever the heck you want, because no one cares. There's no censorship, and the only thing that is "forbidden" is hate speech or violence inciting posts.

Users can earn money from their readers directly in the platform's native token. This token is usually run on the native blockchain, which happens to be where the publishing site is equally located.

Ok. So what's a centralised publishing platform?

It's as easy as negating everything we just said about a decentralised one.

You have a central body controlling everything you say. This means that there's hardly any freedom of speech, and you usually can't say what you want to without being censored or worse: losing your account to a ban.

These platforms usually don't have their own native token, although there are many cases where the reverse is the case. 

They mostly don't run on a blockchain either, and are mostly used to disseminate news articles.

Unlike their decentralised cousin, they usually don't allow just anyone to write on their site. They usually need to screen the person's application before allowing him to write on their site.

Most of them don't have their own token, although some do.

A great example of a centralised publishing platform is Publish0x.

Ok. We now know the differences between the two. So which is the best for you to join?

Let's see their advantages and disadvantages, and then you can pick for yourself.

ADVANTAGES OF A CENTRALISED PUBLISHING PLATFORM:

• They usually pay more money: Sites like Android Authority can actually be a source of liveable income for you. They pay in the high hundred dollars for great posts, and they can become your full time job if you know what you're doing. Equally, sites like Publish0x can be a great way to get some popular and amazing cryptocurrencies for free.
• There's no controversy or drama: For real though, you hardly have drama on these sites. Nothing like someone trying to buy the site and the community saying no, because the community knows that the site is OWNED by someone already.

DISADVANTAGES OF A CENTRALISED PUBLISHING PLATFORM

• You can't say everything you want to say: Most sites actually ban vulgar words from being used in posts, and this may piss a lot of blunt people off. Equally, many centralised platforms ban things like politics or giving your opinion about government policies. 
• You can get banned: Should you not comply with the rules of the site, you can get banned from the site without warning, and lose your thousands of followers forever. Sucks to be you I guess.
• The site could close down, along with your progress: Should the owners of the site see that it's no longer profitable, they might kill the project altogether, and if you were depending on the site as a source of income, tough luck I guess.
• You could lose all your work due to a database failure or breach in the security systems. 
• The site could go down due to a failure on the part of the servers keeping the site online.
• Your content isn't really yours: In the terms and conditions of most centralised publishing platforms, it is clearly written that your content can be used anywhere without permission. Go on. Load the terms and conditions of Publish0x and see it there.
• A hack of the site could mean you lose all your earned income, because if the site pays in crypto, you don't get your wallet keys.

ADVANTAGES OF DECENTRALISED PUBLISHING PLATFORMS

• You can say whatever the heck you want without worrying about being banned.
• You can never really lose your progress, be side the whole thing is etched into a blockchain, powered by thousands of computers that are always online.
• Your content is really yours, unless it is plagiarised by someone else. But because the site has no owners, your content really belongs to you.
• Your security is guaranteed as long as you don't lose your seed phrase. It's also impossible to hack a site that is based on a blockchain, because you'd have to hack into the blockchain first.
• Although you can't make that much money, you have a followership of like minded people, whom you could monetize and make publishing your full time job.

DISADVANTAGES OF DECENTRALISED PUBLISHING PLATFORMS

• Since there is no censorship, you can see things that you don't conform with, and you might not like that.
• You can equally not report things like cyber bullying or molestation to anyone because there's no one to report to.
• It's much, much harder to make money on these platforms as a newcomer, because there are usually already established people there, and everyone doesn't get a fair chance.

So which one is best for you?

Thanks for reading!