An interesting phenomena I seem to increasingly notice is that thought leaders of all types (and their wannabes) almost always gravitate in conversations towards the ultimate question: “What’s wrong with the world?”
That is, indeed, quite a big question, and even though it’s rarely asked explicitly, I’ve heard so many answers voluntarily given, such as:
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These are just a few examples. There are many more, I presume.
I believe that what lies at the root of this question is our shared desire to see a world with less hate, wars, sickness, poverty and suffering. Most people would agree that moving toward these goals would constitute a positive evolution of our civilization.
So what’s holding us back? To answer that question we need to think about what drives evolution in the first place. It is, of course, natural selection.
Natural selection can be unconscious (e.g. lobster that bumps into a hungry eel) or conscious (e.g. female lobster choosing consciously the toughest male to mate with). Nature evolves by offering many alternative “versions” simultaneously, within a framework of natural selection. This process ultimately powers the evolution of the species.
Free markets leverage the same mechanics, as businesses continually offer new and alternative products or services, and customers choose from the available selection, according to their preferences. Thanks to this, countries which historically had the most free trade have been spearheading the evolution of the entire global civilization (USA being the most recent example).
So if “choice” drives evolution, then lack of it must be what's holding it back.
Being deprived of the right to choose in a generally free market is a direct result of “monopolies''. A word which triggers negative associations for many. There’s no wonder, since no one likes being a customer of a monopoly, for the simple reason that it doesn’t need to earn your business. A monopoly’s DNA is not about gaining more customers, it’s about gaining more profits on the backs of captive customers. What else would be their goal? Every company strives to increase its profits, however, only in a fair & free market environment can this be achieved by generating value for customers.
I like to think about three types of monopolies - Resources, IT and State.
The resource monopoly is the original one, and the reason antitrust laws were initially drafted, specifically, to deal with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
The Information Technology monopolies are a modern and fascinating phenomena. Their monopolistic power is always a result of their product’s network effect. They also seem to always be temporary and see their power peaking right before open standards emerge which gradually take their monopolistic status away.
IBM, Atari and Apple were monopolies of “Information Processing Hardware'', until PC architecture became a standard. CompuServe, AOL and others dominated the “Information Transmission” industry - until the Internet became a standard. Microsoft and Oracle dominated “Information Processing Infrastructure Software” before open-source (standard software). Today, Google, Facebook, Amazon and other Web2 giants monopolize the “Information Storing” industry, by controlling access to their databases (read & write), while Blockchain technology (which can be described as a standard, public database) is currently gaining momentum.
The State monopoly is similar in some aspects to the Information Technology monopoly, however, it maintains exclusive access to civil information through law and bureaucracy (banking, taxes, ownership registration, election data, etc.)
So if the problem with the world is monopolies - and the current ones are mostly around “Information Recording” - then it’s easy to guess what the solution might be.
The Internet was not the first network. It was the first public one. The same goes for blockchain - it’s not the first database, but it’s the first public one - meaning that anyone can read/write, and no one has exclusive access to it.
The current monopolies seem such an integral part of life that the issues they cause can sometimes be obfuscated. It can be hard to imagine a world without them. A good example is the issue with Internet censorship that Elon Musk seems to be occupied with these days. The only reason there is an issue at all is that social networks use proprietary database solutions, and therefore assert full control over what’s being censored.
On blockchain-based social networks, such as BBS, it is literally a non-issue as there is no central, global “censor”. Each server operator may set their own policy (and possibly face consequences if they break the law) and each BBS can set their additional rules on top of that. Users are free to join and leave BBS as appropriate to their content and moderation preferences.
End-users in this scenario simply “choose their censor”, meaning that only operators that adopt a policy their customers appreciate will thrive in the BBS Network.
Another example is revenue sharing with the community. There is no way to know the optimal share for the community, however, different operators and BBS owners can experiment with different settings, and from that process, the optimal split should emerge. This is due to the simple fact that there is no real price discovery for the value provided by the platform in a monopolistic setting.
A final example is about access - while anyone can choose their email access software (encouraging healthy competition and a richer set of solutions) - no one can really choose their facebook, youtube or twitter access software - for the same exact reason. Just imagine how amazing it would be to have multiple tools to access our social networks, and the choice over which algorithm generates our news feed.
Today, social networks are probably the most powerful monopolies of our time, and they are holding us back. We have the technology to bring consumer choice back into the information equation, and BBS Network aims to do just that. We couldn’t be more grateful for the support of those who believe, like we do, in the progress that creative competition brings about.
For more on demonopolization, watch my interview on roundtable.io
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