“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller
A New Internet age is upon us.
Fueled by blockchain technology, this new age could catalyze the greatest reallocation of value in human history.
Blockchain enables trust between participants in a decentralized network. The network is owned and operated by its users, without the need for intermediaries.
Blockchain represents digital freedom; freedom from greedy bankers, criminal multinational corporations, and corrupt governments. It enables the building of applications that challenge the way in which we assign, transact, and capture value.
Web 2.0 — The Problem
Back in the early 90s, the Internet promised two things:
Access to information
Democratization of the economy
In the book, “Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy,” Berkeley economists Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian argue that if closed digital platforms are able to attract enough users, you’ll have what’s called “network effects.”
Network effects are defined as “phenomena whereby a product or service gains value as more people use it.”
A combination of network effects and closed digital platforms has resulted in a marketplace dominated by monopolistic superpowers, leaving little room for competition.
Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling was right when he said “it doesn’t make sense to talk about the Internet any more — you can only really talk about Google, Amazon, and Facebook.”
If markets need competition to stay healthy, then Web 2.0 is on life support. Organizations who attempt to challenge the current Internet monopolies often fail to find traction.
Let’s talk about Facebook.
“Facebook knows far more about humanity — and individual humans — than any other company or government on Earth. 500 terabytes of our personal data flow into Facebook every day.” — Quincy Larson, Founder of freeCodeCamp
This personal data is stored away in private vaults, for which we do not have the keys.
Why should you care?
Hope King, contributor to CNN Tech writes that “Facebook is making more money off you than ever before.”
Information provides remarkable insights into human behavior. These insights generate billions of dollars in revenue by way of targeted advertising. This information is also being used to train advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, which many people claim “could either make all our dreams come true, or destroy society and the world as we know it.”
In 2016, Facebook made $17.9 billion off of your time spent on their platform, which accounts for 1/4 of all your time spent on the Internet.
Facebook’s mission claims to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Although I believe the mission of having a more open and connected world is of most noble providence (I’m a blockchain evangelist after all), the way in which the value of your information is captured only acts to reinforce thousands of years of unbalanced social stratification, informed by unconscious human behavior — abundance for the few, scarcity for the many.
Let’s talk about social capital.
Social capital is defined as “the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively.”
Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP of User Growth at Facebook says that, “how society used to measure social capital has totally changed… the ways that used to signal to people that things are working are gone.”
“The ways” he speaks of are in reference to things like where you went to school, the kind of job you work, and the number of things you own.
This profound shift in social capital is in large part due to the behaviors of the Millennial generation (people born after the year 1980).
In a study by the The Council of Economic Advisers, “Millennials value community, family, and creativity in their work, have invested in human capital more than previous generations” and “are less likely to be homeowners than young adults in previous generations.”
If Millennials no longer care about these things, then what do they care about?
In reference to Millennials in the workplace, author Simon Sinek says that, “Millennials want to work in a place with purpose, want to make an impact, and want free food and bean bags… ”
Like Palihapitiya, I believe that Millennials value both their online social capital and offline social experiences. Offline social experiences feed the Millennial’s online content creation, and what results is a new form of social capital.
For example, a Millennial is more likely to spend $5K on a week at Burning Man than to lease an expensive BMW or pay a mortgage on a home.
A dusty Playa at sunrise looks a lot cooler on Snapchat or Instagram than some gas-guzzling luxury car.
So how do we capture this fundamental reallocation of social capital?
Web 3.0 — The Solution
The New Internet will enable us to build applications where new social capital structures can be defined, captured, and distributed to the people who create that value, rather than to monopolistic intermediaries like Facebook and Google.
Among those leading the Web 3.0 revolution is Joseph Lubin, Founder of ConsenSys, “a venture production studio building decentralized applications, primarily focused on Ethereum.”
Lubin is an active proponent of the New Interent. As he said in a recent speach called “Taking Back Control of the Internet” at the Ethereal Summit in Brooklyn NY, “we’re moving from a world of many silos that don’t communicate well together, to one of fluid integration. One simple way to view Ethereum is as a next generation database system, one that supports collaboration as a first class principal.”
“Ethereum allows us to build the web we wanted, and is the web we should want.” — Luke Robert Mason
Let’s imagine Facebook on the New Internet.
Instead of being owned by a small group of people, the New Facebook would be owned by its users.
There would be no centralized Facebook Corporation collecting your personal data and storing it away in private vaults. Instead, users of the platform would earn the value that they add to the network.
For example, content creators, in addition to the users who engage and consume this content, would be paid directly by advertisers. This value, or digital money, would be used to pay bills, buy food, or fund a new business.
Furthermore, users of the network could determine the use of their information, thereby creating new ways to exchange value across this decentralized network.
In fact, there are already a number of companies working on peer-to-peer social media platforms.
The Akasha Project is exploring “the applications and implications of a permanent web in the context of social networks, freedom of expression, creative perpetuity, and privacy for a better Web in service of humanity.”
Steemit has “redefined social media by building a living, breathing, and growing social economy; a community where users are getting rewarded for sharing their voice.”
LBRY is “a free, open, and community-run digital marketplace. You own your data. You control the network. Indeed, you are the network.”
If the users of the network are the ones who bring it value, then it should follow that they collect the value they create.
Let’s take this even further.
Imagine a platform that rewards people for their output of positive energy. The idea would be to incentivize compassionate behavior by earning coins. I’ll call them KarmaCoins.
A biometric would measure and analyze the output of brain activity (several companies, like MUSE, Thync Calm, and NeuroSky, are currently working on creating wearable Electroencephalography (EEG) headsets). Compassion and empathy would earn a user KarmaCoins.
This could help to catalyze the awakening of human consciousness, which I believe is the most important evolutionary necessity for the continuing survival of human beings on planet Earth.
Earn money by being a good person? Technology as a tool to enlightenment? The New Internet makes these kinds of ideas possible.
For the first time in human history, we have the means to invent new and interesting ways to assign, transact, and capture value. When platforms no longer need intermediaries, you unlock the potential, as stated in Mr. Fuller’s quote, “to build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The revolution will be decentralized.