Mike Masnick wrote the paper that helped inspire Bluesky and now he sits on the Bluesky board.A long-time advocate of decentralised tech, Mike's paper 'Protocols not platforms' outlined how a more open protocol-based system to social media would create a healthier social media ecosystem in which people were free to vote with their feet (or their mouse) and go elsewhere, without losing access to the community they'd built.In this wide ranging conversation, Mike and I discuss the future of social media, the internet's trajectory from an open to a closed ecosystem, whether decentralisation can be a winning strategy in a capitalist economy, and much more.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Mike Masnick and Tech Perspectives

05:53 The Evolution of TechDirt and Innovation

11:03 Understanding Free Speech in the Digital Age

15:53 Protocols vs. Platforms: A New Approach to Free Speech

20:50 The Shift from Protocol-Centric to Platform-Centric Internet

28:48 The Evolution of Patents and Competition

31:10 Understanding the Problems with Big Tech

32:23 Moving Towards Decentralization

33:23 The Role of Decentralized Protocols

35:11 Generative AI: Empowerment vs. Control

37:55 Building Personalized Tools for Empowerment

41:35 Decentralization in Social Media: Blue Sky Explained

49:12 The Future of Decentralized Systems

53:04 Mainstream Adoption of Decentralized Technologies

Links

Protocols not platforms

Bluesky

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seb@theuncommonfounder.com⁠