I agree this will happen, and — perhaps unsurprisingly given that I'm also building blockchain based tech — I think it will be a good thing. What seems harder to predict is whether it will be fun. In many ways I hope the power of decentralized data will help us understand where we are the same more than where we are different. I guess they said that of the early web, and we got personalized feeds and advertising and polarization and so on. I'm generally of the opinion that the world has been getting better, so not saying it's all been bad, but I'd be curious to hear (especially from your perspective on e-commerce) whether you think this will be good for humans as well as for commerce, and how? When I'm on Instagram, my ads are incredibly personalized, but I'm not sure I feel "special" as much as "coerced" — the fact that I no longer need to look for things also removes some of my sense of sovereignty.
on the fun point, think there will be a significant layer of intermediaries to help manage permissions for your sovereign data. some great thinking out there about about data trusts/collectives/unions that can do that management for you, but the key difference being that they're a fiduciary to you and not to the platforms. aside from providing leverage to negotiate fairer treatment, privacy, value, returns, etc. can also offer different experiences for different types of data. ultra secure on health-data, more open options for consumer data. would see the offerings differing based on the kinds of packages they offer that align with your values (or lack of concern), so a lot of the management is done on their side while still offering some (fun) customization, and the fiduciary responsibility functions as a safeguard for liability.
big unlock is akin to wallet ux problem in making human-readable what the effect is of signing a certain transaction/opening up certain data.
I agree this will happen, and — perhaps unsurprisingly given that I'm also building blockchain based tech — I think it will be a good thing. What seems harder to predict is whether it will be fun. In many ways I hope the power of decentralized data will help us understand where we are the same more than where we are different. I guess they said that of the early web, and we got personalized feeds and advertising and polarization and so on. I'm generally of the opinion that the world has been getting better, so not saying it's all been bad, but I'd be curious to hear (especially from your perspective on e-commerce) whether you think this will be good for humans as well as for commerce, and how? When I'm on Instagram, my ads are incredibly personalized, but I'm not sure I feel "special" as much as "coerced" — the fact that I no longer need to look for things also removes some of my sense of sovereignty.
on the fun point, think there will be a significant layer of intermediaries to help manage permissions for your sovereign data. some great thinking out there about about data trusts/collectives/unions that can do that management for you, but the key difference being that they're a fiduciary to you and not to the platforms. aside from providing leverage to negotiate fairer treatment, privacy, value, returns, etc. can also offer different experiences for different types of data. ultra secure on health-data, more open options for consumer data. would see the offerings differing based on the kinds of packages they offer that align with your values (or lack of concern), so a lot of the management is done on their side while still offering some (fun) customization, and the fiduciary responsibility functions as a safeguard for liability.
big unlock is akin to wallet ux problem in making human-readable what the effect is of signing a certain transaction/opening up certain data.
I believe this will eventually happen. Applications like Sign-in with Ethereum and Token-gating will serve as a foundation for this.
Love your writing btw.
Interesting, thanks!
Interesting link I'd never really considered...