This weekend, he admitted having himself participated in the centralization of the web by creating Twitter. “The days of Usenet, IRC, the web… even email (with PGP)… were amazing. The centralization of discovery and identity in enterprises has really damaged the Internet. I realize that I am partly responsible and I regret it”he wrote.
His message received many responses, including one from the CEO of American fintech Affirm, Max Levchin, who told him that the Internet could not have developed otherwise, when he needed to win over the public and start to earn money. He also said that “the subtlety of today could not exist at the time” thinking about the necessary perspective that we have today to be able to make a criticism.
To which Jack Dorsey replied that “maybe a greater emphasis on protocol first, then interface would have helped”. He added that the lack of technology at the time “didn’t offer enough solutions to make money”. Understand: Bitcoin didn’t exist yet. “This led to the dominance of advertising”, he wrote. Model on which Twitter was built and on which the social network seeks to leave in part today.
Waste of time for Web3
If Jack Dorsey is betting so much on Bitcoin and the Blockchain, it is because it will be the solution for him to build a totally free Internet on which security and identity protection are not neglected. But since last year, the entrepreneur has been leading a media campaign to inform about the risks on today’s Web3.
“No, it’s the same problem with different words”replied Jack Dorsey to a user who told him that “web3 will be able to solve these problems” mentioned by the entrepreneur in his original tweet.
Indeed, projects such as the Binance or Coinbase cryptocurrency purchasing platforms are of no interest to him. Because they take advantage of an effectively decentralized product (Bitcoin) to centralize it on a stock market that looks like a crypto bank. Moreover, Coinbase went public a year ago, which shows its proximity to Wall Street and traditional finance.
Also Read – Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk criticize Web3, here is their opinion
On Twitter, he wrote in December 2021 that “you don’t own Web3. Investment funds own it”, in reference to big names like A16z who are investing heavily in decentralized web projects to obtain their services – and repeating what Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have done with Web 2.0 (centralized monopolies). Jack Dorsey is pessimistic in an attempt to rally everyone around his cause.
If he works on his side on a decentralized social network, let’s not forget that he is also behind Square and that his fintech which bets on Bitcoin, also has Cash App. A peer-to-peer payment service that is no different from an application like Coinbase or Binance. But since yesterday, Elon Musk has joined him indirectly in his fight by investing 2.9 billion dollars to acquire nearly 10% of the capital of Twitter.