Why Decentralize

The web, as it currently exists, has astounding reach and it has greatly enhanced the connectivity of the world and created economic and political and social empowerment in many places. It also has opened up the world’s population to endless and effectively unlimited oversight, “Surveillance Capitalism” as Shoshana Zuboff terms it¹. But computer power increases relentlessly, human inventiveness knows no bounds, and the prospect to reinvent the web, one of the most important tools humanity has yet created, that prospect remains alive. Let’s do it again!

In my Medium post on this subject, I look at the motives to create a new, decentralized web. The framework for thinking of this:

  1. To avoid problems with today’s web

  2. To achieve new, better outcomes

  3. Because we have new technical tools

Of course, this isn’t an attempt to create a centralized vision. Rather, I curated lots of thoughts. Read it HERE.

Blockchain: it's not the thing

Bitcoin, blockchain, decentralized ledgers, smart contracts. This domain emerged just in the past 10 years, and already has attracted technical wizards and bankers and politicians and scam artists and lawyers. Most cryptocurrencies and coin offerings soared, but remain deeply down from year-ago highs.

What to make of this? How to build strategy amidst this? In the piece linked here, I argue that bitcoin and blockchain and the rest of the ecosystem are not the dazzling outcome itself: they’re the tools that enable the outcome. It’s not the thing: it’s what gets us to the thing.