No one person, or no group of people, has control over it, and big companies don’t have power over the individual user, at least in theory. But that idea isn’t limited to currencies; the fundamental concept of a peer-to-peer system that connects people and allows transfer of information without a middleman has broader applications. 

Take the internet. When Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, he purposely made it open, decentralised, and non-proprietary. But things have changed a lot in 25 years, and a few corporations have more control over our online activity than we could have imagined back then.