Well, Twitter decentralization is about to become a reality since “Bluesky,” a new team announced by Jack Dorsey, the founder, and CEO of Twitter. This news was shared back in December 2019. The purpose of this team is to work on decentralized social media standards. It has caught the eyes of both the crypto and non-crypto communities.
Dorsey has expressed his thoughts in favor of decentralized protocols. While opinion leaders and advocates of WEB 3.0 such as Vitalik Buterin, Fred Wilson, and Brian Armstrong have praised this decision as it will allow open protocol acceptance, it may be too early to predict Bluesky’s future, but there is one group who may find this suggestion a little strange, i.e., Twitter’s shareholders.
Drawbacks leading to Twitter decentralization
Twitter’s main business is rent-seeking in nature, and it has proven to be very helpful to users who enjoy easy and secure interface networks. But Dorsey himself has stated its drawback:
- Centralized enforcement to lecture confusing and insulting information is unlikely to scale.
- Some attention directing methods are exclusive, and many times no alternative is available.
- Nowadays, all attention is diverted immediately to content that may spark controversy.
Decentralized methods can be used to handle these craggy situations by encouraging the participant to create fair rules and prioritize network stability plus manage engagement.
This is the main reason why Bitcoin and Ethereum are becoming popular among people. Like most social media platforms, Twitter’s business is built on the perspective that a centralized business model and decentralized control are not likely to coexist.
Fake activity via bots, multiple identities, and click farms are becoming very common nowadays. Twitter doesn’t seem to be effectively solving this problem. Moreover, the current methods have made people think that it prioritizes the quantity of attention over their content. While Twitter decentralization is believed to provide a better solution for such issues.
Without total realignment, Dorsey’s idea of Twitter decentralization can not be materialized. Failing obviously can cost an unrecoverable loss to Twitter. Dorsey explains that the new policy will encourage healthy conversations.
Dorsey’s plan to nullify Twitter’s current business model may create the notion that Twitter is merely a client of BlueSky, which has very little chances of success. Whereas, Twitter’s shareholders are not its contributors. They aren’t tweeting memes or creating trending hashtags; they are simply investors.
Except for the shareholders, everyone seems to be excited. This method has won over the majority of the public, as it portrays to be better for humanity. Unlike other social media platforms that aren’t considered trustworthy now. However, it’ll be pretty hard for Dorsey to convince the shareholders to invest in this new policy.
Comparing Twitter decentralization BlueSky with Facebook Libra
Facebook aimed to disrupt payments when it entered the payments space in early 2019 with Libra. Dorsey is attempting the same through Square crypto and has been quite successful in it. However, Libra has no attention to decentralize Facebook, while Dorsey believes Twitter decentralization is the next big move.
The debate on how profitable Twitter decentralization will be for the network as a whole also entails the current ad-supported method of social media is not much favored.
Outrage brings attention, which leads to the centralized newspaper leading with horrendous headlines. Well, it does have some demerits being the reason no such platforms exist today. Dorsey’s plan is commendable, but it will require a lot of sacrifices.
Although Its hard to predict the end form of BlueSky, Dorcey’s declaration is a groundbreaking opportunity for WEB 3.0 and may prove to be very influential. Introducing this system will face many obstacles, such as the hindrance it poses for users and the lack of network effects, but both these problems can be solved, although the company’s shareholders might want to consider more.
Featured Image by KDM
