Chris Dixon on Read Write Own

January 28, 2024

Check the full episode on Youtube:

SUMMARY

The internet is at a critical juncture, and the development of Web3 and blockchain technology has the potential to create a more open, decentralized, and user-owned internet, revolutionizing industries and empowering individuals.

• 00:00 📚 Chris Dixon's "Read Write Own" is a beginner's guide to understanding crypto, emphasizing the importance of clear writing and the challenges of writing a book and dealing with complex information.

  • Chris Dixon discusses his new book "Read Write Own" and how it serves as a beginner's guide to understanding crypto for smart high school students and anyone interested in the topic.

  • The speaker wrote a detailed onboarding manual for blockchain and crypto to explain the concepts to skeptics and open-minded individuals without a background in technology or the internet.

  • The speaker discusses the importance of avoiding jargon, passive voice, and superlatives in writing, and the process of breaking down a book to its first principles.

  • Writing a book becomes challenging as it gets longer, requiring a good outline and either an editor or AI to find redundancies.

  • The speaker discusses the process of taking breaks while reading and getting feedback from smart people on their writing.

  • The speaker discusses the challenges of dealing with a messy codebase and the difficulty of retaining and processing large amounts of information.

• 08:51 📚 The book "Read Write Own" by Chris Dixon explores the positive response from non-crypto audiences, the potential impact on the tech community, and the decentralized nature of the early internet and crypto.

  • The response to the book has been positive, especially from those who are less into crypto.

  • The speaker hopes that people in the crypto community will find his framework and treatment of regulatory topics interesting, especially for those who may not be familiar with Internet history.

  • The speaker discusses the value of the book for different audiences and the potential impact on the tech community.

  • Crypto is approached from different perspectives - financial, political, and technological - and the book covers the history of web one and two, the invention of blockchains, crypto economics, current controversies, and future possibilities.

  • The early internet was remarkable because it was decentralized, owned by the people, and allowed for individual ownership and control, with the ability to exit if necessary.

  • Political dissidents and activists could have their own plot of land and own what they built without a middleman taking a cut, similar to the control and ownership in the virtual world.

• 15:35 🌐 Owning your digital assets is crucial as the internet has evolved into a two-way platform, with the fall of RSS leading to the consolidation of social networking, and the potential for Web 3.0 to incorporate peer-to-peer and monetization, while YouTube's success came from providing free hosting for user-generated content.

  • Owning your domain name and digital assets is important because leasing can lead to increased costs and lack of control over your online presence.

  • The internet evolved from a one-way form of media to a two-way platform, allowing users to publish and engage in social media.

  • The fall of RSS in the 2000s led to the consolidation of social networking and had a massive economic consequence, with the top 1% of social networks now accounting for 99% of social networking traffic and revenue.

  • Web 3.0 combines the frontend and backend evolution of web 1 and web 2, incorporating aspects of peer-to-peer and MVC architectures while also enabling monetization and open source programmability.

  • RSS was good for static content distribution but failed for dynamic content due to lack of features and funding, which could have been solved by blockchain technology, and the building of social networks has involved a lot of subsidization.

  • YouTube started as a dating site, pivoted to a social video site with a strategy of providing free hosting for users to embed videos on their blogs, leading to its success as a network and a valuable company.

• 24:14 🔗 Blockchain combines protocol and corporate networks for societal benefits and competitive advantages, while web 3 needs to match web 2's user experience and provide ownership benefits, and distribution is now abundant with the rise of social media.

  • Blockchain is a synthesis of protocol and corporate networks, providing societal benefits and competitive advantages without centralized control.

  • Unix commands can become apps, and there is potential for adding Global State to protocols like BitTorrent and SCP.

  • There have been numerous attempts to create new protocols in the last 30 years, but many were limited by lack of funding and VC investment due to the lack of control over network effects.

  • Innovation in feed formats is similar to the standardization of electrical power outlets, allowing for easy replication and slight innovation in new platforms.

  • Web 2 has strong user experience and free services, but web 3 needs to match those features and provide ownership benefits for users, developers, and entrepreneurs.

  • The Unabomber wanted to get his manifesto out, so he killed for distribution, but now distribution is so abundant that anyone can tweet something out and be seen worldwide.

• 31:21 🌐 Web3 enables new capabilities, decentralized communities drive developer creativity, and blockchain technology provides business models for content creators in an AI world.

  • More people have access to the internet than running water, and adding web3 to web two apps enables new capabilities like web3 WhatsApp and developer-facing improvements.

  • The history of software development has been driven by decentralized communities, and there is a belief that a renaissance in developer creativity will occur when they have more freedom from corporate control.

  • The speaker discusses the cyclical nature of technology, with periods of centralization followed by decentralization, and predicts that we are still early in the development of this trend.

  • Social networks are now punishing users for linking out, leading to the rise of platforms like Substack and Patreon as escape hatches back to the open web.

  • The speaker discusses the trend of major tech companies pushing for more control over user content and the potential impact of AI on the accessibility and openness of the web.

  • Content creators need to find a way to be paid for keeping their content open on the web, and blockchain technology can provide business models for creative people in an AI world.

• 39:39 🔍 Deep fake technology and micro NFTs are changing the way we own and monetize digital content, allowing for control and revenue sharing in a world of abundant online content.

  • Deep fake technology is the solution for counterfeit persons and proof of personhood, and attributability is also important.

  • Micro NFTs allow artists to track and monetize their authentic work, similar to the video game industry's use of free games with virtual goods.

  • The games industry embraced the idea of not fighting the natural pull of the internet, leading to the acceptance and benefits of game streaming.

  • Monetizing virtual goods and community through status signaling is a way to decouple online signaling from physical goods and monetize in a world of abundant content.

  • We spend most of our waking hours looking at screens and living in virtual worlds, but we don't own the digital items we earn online.

  • Owning your digital presence on the internet is important because it allows you to control your content, avoid deplatforming, and have a share in the revenue generated from your content.

• 46:32 🔑 Ownership in the digital world through blockchain gives users rights and control over their data and assets, countering the power of big companies and platforms.

  • Video sites like YouTube started with a competitive mindset of sharing revenue, while social networking platforms like Facebook evolved differently, leading to the difference in revenue sharing models.

  • Ownership in the digital world, enabled by blockchain, allows users to have rights and ownership of digital assets that cannot be taken away, similar to property rights in the offline world.

  • Services like PayPal have too much control over user data and the web 3 vision aims to give users more rights and control over their data and economics.

  • The talk discusses how web 3 profiles and technology changes give individuals more leverage against giant companies.

  • TikTok deliberately turned down the influence of top creators in favor of promoting a larger number of creators with a million followers, using AI for profit maximization, but the problem is that the creators have no leverage and are dependent on the platform.

  • Network effects give companies like AWS unlimited power, leading to monopolies, and the only counterbalance is to give users digital ownership and the ability to switch.

• 54:23 🔗 The concept of ownership is expanding to include individual, developer, community, algorithmic, and machine ownership, with blockchain as the operating system of web 3, revolutionizing content creation and collaboration, and prompting the need for new applications and public goods in digital identity and reputation systems.

  • The concept of ownership is expanding to include individual, developer, community, algorithmic, and machine ownership, with blockchain being considered as the operating system of web 3.

  • Digital ownership allows for new types of content creation and collaboration, such as crowd-sourced storytelling and decentralized marketing, which can revolutionize the entertainment industry.

  • Crowdsourcing and storytelling can be improved with the inclusion of AI and crypto to limit tasks to qualified individuals.

  • The speaker discusses the need for new applications and public goods in the digital identity and reputation systems to fill the gap before it gets filled by private companies.

  • The speaker discusses the potential of crypto and blockchain in various industries, as well as the need to rethink business models for content creators in a world of infinite content generation and distribution.

  • The speaker discusses the emergence of the metaverse, the potential impact on virtual experiences, the importance of open systems, and the need for proactive and intelligent tech policy discussions.

INSIGHTS

Web3 and the future of the internet

• 🔗 Chris Dixon's framework "faucets and sinks" in the token section of crypto is a crystallization of the best ideas in the industry.

• 🧩 Making web2 apps hackable Lego bricks allows for the creation of different interfaces and services, providing developers with more flexibility and creativity in building new tools and platforms.

• 💰 Platforms like Substack and Patreon are seen as escape hatches back to the open web, offering better economics for creators compared to social networks.

• 🌐 The new open web, Web 3, combines the best of both worlds, structured like web two style databases but as open as a web one style web, making it the new open web.

• 🤔 The blockchain is being compared to a computer, with the potential to become the operating system of web 3, offering a fully programmable environment and new functionality.

• 🌐 Web3 has the potential to create new, collaborative storytelling experiences that could revolutionize the entertainment industry.

• 🔑 The missing pieces in the internet, like payments and digital identity, will either become private goods or public goods, and it's crucial to build them as public goods before they get subsumed by companies.

• 🌐 The metaverse is becoming more like real life, and the critical question is whether it will be organized as a closed system controlled by a few companies or as an open system like the web.

Ownership and decentralization in the internet

• 📚 The original internet was decentralized and owned by the users, with political motivations and promises of a truly decentralized network.

• 💻 The early internet was remarkable in that it was owned by the people, with no intermediaries taking tolls and power.

• 💰 The concept of ownership in the internet today is not normal, and users should have the same kind of property rights online as they do offline.

• 💻 The current internet model leaves users disenfranchised and at the mercy of service providers, raising questions about the kind of internet we want to live in.

• 🔄 Technology changes give individuals more leverage against giant companies, allowing them to take their entire profile out and bring it into another site, giving them more negotiating power.

The impact of blockchain and NFTs on industries

• 💰 The video game industry's shift to free games with virtual goods, essentially NFTs, has contributed to its massive growth in revenue to 180 billion annually, surpassing Hollywood.