2021-01-12

Internet 3.0 and the Beginning of Tech History

I’m not so certain we’ll see a move back to open/decentralized protocols as @benthompson predicts in this worth-reading article.

I’d love to see it, but there’s so much about the user experience that has proven difficult to get right.

Decentralized is just harder to make work well and a decentralized competitor has to work harder against a fast-moving centralized solution.

Also, a niggle:

The fact that the capability exists for their own leaders to be silenced by an unreachable and unaccountable executive in San Francisco is all that matters

The President has not been silenced. He can get a statement or interview in the press if he wants.

The President likely has a giant, still-functioning email list (ha! decentralized tech that works still). He just does not have a way today to push out 280 character rants & lies on a whim.

One further note in support of the difficulty for decentralized to compete with centralized: many people use Gmail because they prefer its user experience, and the same goes for iMessage.

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19

Jeremy Howard and others have published a peer-reviewed COVID-19 article about face mask use (tl;dr: wear one!). Twitter summary and the original paper at PNAS