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January 9, 2022, 7:35 PM
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| Moxie Marlinspike: |
How Web3 apps and wallets inevitably depend on centralized services like OpenSea, Infura, and Alchemy, which don't even provide authenticated responses — Despite considering myself a cryptographer, I have not found myself particularly drawn to “crypto.” I don't think I've ever actually said the words …
Tweets: @moxie, @brian_armstrong, @balajis, @cdixon, @qwqiao, @evgenymorozov, @hackylawyer, @michaelguimarin, @evgenymorozov, @pankaj, @sairarahman, @mikebutcher, @timoreilly, @daphnehk, @stonehippo, @julesurbach, @chrisapplegate, @thelincoln, @carnage4life, @evgenymorozov, @gordonbrander, @beltrandroid, @alexh_johnson, @digitlartifacts, @johnbattelle, @jespow, @brianwisti, @dewitt, @francesca_bria, @levie, @benyt, @jeffjarvis, @artfcity, @ziggamon, @minerva_kr, @avilarenata, @matthew_d_green, @nic__carter, @campster, @jathansadowski, @jcohen570, @stevenbjohnson, @levie, @tusharjain_, @souloftwhit, @nikitabier, @balajis, @gwenckatz, @nathanjurgenson, @markpinc, @coryklippsten, @profcarroll, @shonaghosh, @sameepa, @evgenymorozov, @alexgekker, @benedictevans, @benedictevans, @furqanr, @blknoiz06, @herbgreenberg, @svpino, @benedictevans, @benedictevans, @levie, @carnage4life, @benedictevans, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @sim_pop, @gakonst, @samerkamal, @nicoleperlroth, @argvee, @jeffseibert, @jmorse_, @stephenpiment, @lcamtuf, @craigmod, @brian_armstrong, @brian_armstrong, @brian_armstrong, @brian_armstrong, @alexhern, @brian_armstrong, @joshelman, @can, @can, @levie, @anildash, @anildash, @jack, @grady_booch, @levie, @dalperovitch, @davepell, @davidu, @_mg_, @erickschonfeld, @aeyakovenko, @emilygorcenski, @nixxin, @brian_armstrong, @brian_armstrong, @brian_armstrong, @joshelman, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @mgsiegler, @mgsiegler, @athertonkd, @tomchatfield, @vvuk, @amasad, @lmorchard, @moyix, @stephenpiment, @posco, @timbray, @jakewharton, @jeffseibert, @gramofdata, @kennwhite, @villi, @seldo, @gladstein, and @mchrisriley
More:
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine: Web .0000012 — I've been thinking about Matt Mullenweg's response to Brian Armstrong's response …
mirror.xyz: On Web3 Infrastructure — In recent months, there has been a resurgence in the usage of the term …
Sascha Fedorenko / Sascha's Newsletter: Web3 is but a scam — This week's setting the mood is the Best Band Ever™ Cake. Witty.
Rishi Taparia / Tippets by Taps: Back on the merry-go-round — A warm welcome to you new readers who are getting this for the first time.
Tweets:
Moxie Marlinspike / @moxie: Wrote some notes summarizing my first impressions of web3: https://moxie.org/...
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: 3. I agree there is an overall move toward using platforms. But there is a big difference between using a platform that also owns all the data also (web2) and a platform that is merely a proxy to decentralized data (web3).
Balaji Srinivasan / @balajis: In 2000, Netflix mailed DVDs. They knew streaming was the future. But they also knew bandwidth was limited. In 2022, many web3 entities are partially centralized. They know decentralization is the future. But blockspace is limited. Need Nielsen's Law for blockspace. https://twitter.com/...
@qwqiao: All the criticisms of Web3 I saw today reminds me of the criticisms of mobile vs PC a decade ago, in that they focus on the dimensions where the new tech is worse than the old tech, while completing ignoring the dimensions in which the new tech is better than old tech.
Evgeny Morozov / @evgenymorozov: How did Web2 appropriate the efforts of alternative networks like Indymedia? What does Europe have to learn from Latin America and Project Cybersyn? What's missing from the political vision of Web3? All of this in our latest interview with @francesca_bria https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ...
Elizabeth M. Renieris / @hackylawyer: “The Web3 agenda seems quite similar to that of Web2. The promises, paradigms, narratives and business models are not so different as they seem . . . Web2 promised an open digital economy with the potential to democratise the Internet.” -@francesca_bria https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ...
Michael Guimarin / @michaelguimarin: Blockspace as a constraint like bandwidth or shelf-space is a keystone concept in crypto assets/web3. That this idea isn't yet pervasive underscores that we are still in inning 1. People don't understand the metaphors for what is happening. Understand this concept. https://twitter.com/...
Evgeny Morozov / @evgenymorozov: This is such a great analysis of how the political economy behind Web3 actually drives it *towards* centralization and *away* from privacy. A spectacular job by @moxie https://moxie.org/...
@pankaj: Moxie's post on web3 is a great read! But, with due respect, by harping too much on centralization of _access_ and the _current_ state of hybrid web2+web3, it misses a few key points. This commentary by Brian is a must read along with the original post. https://twitter.com/...
Saira / @sairarahman: My mind is blown a little bit, maybe this was just my naïveté. Did not know MM talks to an API of a company which hosts nodes More centralized than I thought https://moxie.org/...
Mike Butcher / @mikebutcher: Would that there were even a hint of faint praise in this subtle damnation. https://twitter.com/...
@timoreilly: Epic: “even if this is just the beginning (and it very well might be!), I'm not sure we should consider that any consolation. I think the opposite might be true; ... we should take notice that from the very beginning, these technologies immediately tended towards centralization” https://twitter.com/...
Daphne Keller / @daphnehk: Super useful discussion of the centralization built in to major “decentralized” Web3 NFT systems. This answers a bunch of my questions and confirms a bunch of my biases. https://moxie.org/...
George White / @stonehippo: A great point, and something for Web3 folks to ponder. The history of the Internet is successive waves of “start open, veer towards closed.” It's not a technology problem, or a failure of architecture. It's scale + landlords, friends. https://twitter.com/...
Jules Urbach / @julesurbach: My mind was 🤯 when I too confirmed NFT's can be (and often are) entirely defined by JSON metadata URLs allowed to be fetched off chain (w/ no hash check enforced!). Proof of render could address this for many NFTs, while also verifying composability w/ multiple royalty flows https://twitter.com/...
Chris Applegate / @chrisapplegate: Great piece on the problem with NFTs - the serving different images to different services is lulz, but this is the key para for me https://moxie.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Lincoln Michel / @thelincoln: A good technical look at web3 and how the allegedly decentralized internet is very much centralized and increasingly run by platforms just like “old” web2 https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: The problem with web3/crypto people is that they don't know how to talk about the benefits of their approach without denigrating existing technology or claiming benefits that are clearly non-existent. • Blockchain technology is not “web” technology, no matter how loosely defined https://twitter.com/...
Evgeny Morozov / @evgenymorozov: This is correct. (Remember Yahoo Pipes, anyone?) Web3 advocates selectively reframe Web 2.0 as “Facebook + Spotify” to make things like tokenization and staking look self-evidently good. It's history read in a very twisted way to make crypto look like the obvious solution. https://twitter.com/...
Gordon Brander / @gordonbrander: The risk is that the centralized aggregators pull up the ladder behind them. https://twitter.com/...
@beltrandroid: 'I don't see how Web3 - focused as it is on the creator economy & tokenisation - would allow us to deal with questions regarding infrastructural power & the industrial policy of the future' Interview of @francesca_bria in/around decentralisation https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ...
Alex Johnson / @alexh_johnson: Watching Jack and a16z beef about web3 is entertaining, but this is what you should actually be paying attention to. I learned a ton from this post. https://twitter.com/...
Nicole / @digitlartifacts: I've been working in web 3 for under a year and I've already seen this “optimism” co-opted by power hungry, dishonest, low integrity people driven by greed and insecurity. These concerns are extremely valid. I think human nature is the problem, I'm not yet clear on a solution. https://twitter.com/...
John Battelle / @johnbattelle: And @jeffjarvis here https://buzzmachine.com/... (which incorporates several others...)
Jesse Powell / @jespow: >if they had built a platform to buy and sell images that wasn't nominally based on crypto, I don't think it would have taken off...because this is a gold rush. It wouldn't have taken off because it would have been riddled with payment fraud, forgeries and regulatory problems. https://twitter.com/...
@brianwisti: Dammit yes this exactly. FB in particular was just riding in on trails cleared by all these. Google & FB “won” that cycle by providing more services under one roof (because gobs of money obvs). What folks call “web 2.0” is the fields all trampled after 2.0 was done and buried. https://twitter.com/...
DeWitt Clinton / @dewitt: I agree. After the great de-API-ificafion of 2010-ish, all the major tech companies (Google, FB, Twitter) were the antithesis of Web 2.0. Open APIs you could use without a business deal, open protocols anyone could implement, open content under open licenses... that was Web 2.0. https://twitter.com/...
Francesca Bria / @francesca_bria: A long entertaining conversation with @evgenymorozov about my political trajectory, the projects and initiatives I started to democratize and decentralize the digital economy and its emergent institutions, and what it means for Web3 and digital sovereignty https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ...
Aaron Levie / @levie: What's amazing is Moxie's post is so “obvious”, and yet it's taken this long for a meaningful breakdown of web3 challenges. We need to increase the number of people writing that have built software at scale before a bunch of folks run off an architectural cliff.
Ben Smith / @benyt: “This might suggest that decentralization itself is not actually of immediate practical or pressing importance to the majority of people downstream...” https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis: So now (at last) to the point re @Moxie: In the end, the post calls for 1) “We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure.” 10/ https://moxie.org/...
Paddy Johnson / @artfcity: Little late on this, but the @moxie post on web3 effectively challenges the idea that we're getting a decentralized Utopia with NFTs. https://moxie.org/...
@ziggamon: Wow, Moxies analysis of web3 is really prescient, well worth the longread. Note that as Udi points out, before bitcoiners go dunk this over the ethereans, consider what of this applies similarly in bitcoinland and what to do in this regard. https://twitter.com/...
Minerva / @minerva_kr: “the only amount of decentralization people want is the minimum amount required for something to exist, and that if not very consciously accounted for, these forces will push us further from rather than closer to the ideal outcome as the days become less early.” https://twitter.com/...
Renata Avila / @avilarenata: I updated my #Web3 understanding with: 101: An essay by @tante https://tante.cc/... Tech: by @moxie https://moxie.org/... $: An interview with @ecuarauz https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ... Plus @evgenymorozov via @cryptosyllabus and @tariqkrim newsletter https://www.getrevue.co/... https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: What Moxie doesn't realize is that all the centralized services in crypto eventually get hacked, or exit scam. That keeps things decentralized.
Nic Carter / @nic__carter: Fantastic post, I will admit I wasn't aware that most (all??) NFT wallets just query Opensea. That part was genuinely shocking to me https://twitter.com/...
Chris Franklin / @campster: This is a pretty informative piece on why crypto fails in its goal of decentralization as the *backend* is decentralized but the front-ends and user facing applications have coalesced around a handful of APIs controlled by a few handful of platforms with access. https://twitter.com/...
Jathan Sadowski / @jathansadowski: Once again, web3 is stealth centralization with an ideological facade. Very interesting blog post giving a critical take on the architecture of web3 from the creator of Signal, a guy who knows a few things about cryptography. https://moxie.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Joshua Cohen / @jcohen570: Really terrific interview by @evgenymorozov with @francesca_bria. Historically rich, no false promises, informed by democratic conviction. https://twitter.com/...
Steven Johnson / @stevenbjohnson: Excellent interview, including some in-depth discussion of Decode and D-Cent which are both really inspiring projects in collective decision-making/participatory democracy. (So much interesting work happening in European cities on this front, as opposed to the US.) https://twitter.com/...
Aaron Levie / @levie: Secondly, if you're a founder and think you're Reed Hastings, maybe you can pull off a transition like this. But otherwise, building for one product architecture knowing you're going to swap it out for something entirely different is quite a high wire act.
Tushar Jain / @tusharjain_: Moxie is right. Relying on Infura, Alchemy, or other centralized service providers in your dApp is a centralizing force and recreates the problems of Web2. This is one of the most bullish posts for @graphprotocol that I've seen. https://twitter.com/...
Tom Whitney / @souloftwhit: And second, this by Moxie Marlinspike, which identifies how the ideology of the web3 project is completely and thoroughly compromised from the start because it centralizes power in platforms anyway: https://twitter.com/...
Nikita / @nikitabier: RIP Crypto 2009-2022
Balaji Srinivasan / @balajis: “...the only amount of decentralization people want is the minimum amount required for something to exist...” This is true for the same reason internet apps use the minimum necessary bandwidth to exist. Blockspace, like bandwidth, is rapidly increasing but costly and finite. https://twitter.com/...
Gwen C. Katz / @gwenckatz: This is a Banksy-level stunt. I doff my hat to you. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@nathanjurgenson: funny thing is you dont need any technical knowledge at all to know centralization and hierarchy is always inevitable https://moxie.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Mark Pincus / @markpinc: Web3 being built via web 2 centralized platforms. Perfect irony. https://twitter.com/...
@coryklippsten: This is a must read. Absolutely damning indictment of NFTs / Web3 from a real cryptographer (Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal) https://moxie.org/...
David Carroll / @profcarroll: Another fresh perspective on web3 to keep delving beyond @moxie's take presently making the rounds https://twitter.com/...
Shona Ghosh / @shonaghosh: Sure you can raise $9B in funding and throw around words like paradigm, but it's a bit of an issue when highly credible techies' response to Web3 is “WTH is this BS.” https://twitter.com/...
Sameepa Shetty / @sameepa: “Eventually, all the #web3 parts are gone... you have a website for buying and selling JPEGS with your debit card. The project can't start as a web2 platform ...but the same market dynamics & fundamental forces of centralization will likely drive it there” @moxie https://twitter.com/...
Evgeny Morozov / @evgenymorozov: So we've just published our best interview to date on @cryptosyllabus - with @francesca_bria! It maps out the history of earlier public efforts at decentralisation (D-Cent and Decode), highlights the role of govts & soc movements, and takes on Web3/crypto https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ...
Alex Gekker / @alexgekker: ‘Given the history of why web1 became web2, what seems strange to me about web3 is that technologies like eth have been built with many of the same implicit trappings as wb1. To make these technologies usable, the space is consolidating around... platforms’ https://moxie.org/...
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: The common thread: most of the data on a social network isn't yours, isn't portable and wouldn't mean anything if it was. A social network is not a database and a dumb client that queries the database. It's not email, or RSS. It's a system.
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: I follow a thousand people on web3Instagram. It adds a feature I hate (Reels!) so I use a new client to read the posts. Great. But if I want to post, comment or like, i still need to pay the web3IG chain, same as before. My client can block ads, but not post w/out paying.
Furqan Rydhan / @furqanr: Most opinions of web3 are completely wrong because people don't understand how things work under the hood, Brian (obviously) gets it This point is really important and explains the shift between web2 -> web3, it has to do with who owns it (you) vs where it's done (servers) https://twitter.com/...
Herb Greenberg / @herbgreenberg: LOTS of chatter about this; expect to see MUCH more. My takeaway, in the form of a question: Is DeFi a myth? https://twitter.com/...
Santiago / @svpino: This is the best practical take on web3 that I've read so far! https://twitter.com/...
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: Ah, but I have ownership. I can leave a network I don't like. OK... so I can de-index my site from Google. Does that make sense? I can post on a new network and my old followers can see it. Yes, and I can also move my site from Squarespace to Webflow and redirect the domain.
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: I don't like Web3Instagram so I move to a new network with a better payout rate. The 10m people following my wallet automatically see my stuff there. But, no-one else actually uses this new network, so what payout do I get? What new followers and new engagement does it give me?
Aaron Levie / @levie: @Carnage4Life Yes. The idea that you can meaningfully jump to another app is doing all the visionary lifting for web3 right now with simply no ability to architect this in practice for any app at consumer scale.
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: That argument also ignores the technical reality that it's so expensive to store data on the blockchain that it only contains metadata which often isn't enough to build a complete experience. Most NFTs don't even store the JPEGs on the blockchain but instead point to a website.
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: Web2: companies control the network and we have no say. Web3: users and participants have votes. So: build a web3 search/recommendation system. The people with the most traffic have the most votes. Homework exercise: make a list of all the bad things that could cause. 1/
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: Argument below is that sure web3 is centralizing but you can always switch if the companies go bad because blockchain. Similarly you can export your email from Gmail, videos from YouTube or apps from AWS if the companies piss you off but we know how that ended up in practice https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: 3 things can be true • Crypto isn't the web because blockchains are not designed to be as accessible as the web. • Centralization is the natural end state of popular tech and NFTs are centralizing around OpenSea. • People will make lots of money & find lots of joy from NFTs. https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: Good post from @moxie on his experience writing web3 apps and some key observations ⁃Blockchain isn't friendly to mobile apps as you need to run a node on a server. This implies every mobile app has to talk to an API on a server to use blockchain. https://moxie.org/...
Simona Pop / @sim_pop: “seems worth thinking about how to avoid web3 being web2x2 (web2 but with even less privacy) with some urgency...” https://twitter.com/...
Georgios Konstantopoulos / @gakonst: Sober article by Moxie, to the point of using crypto to distribute trust: Zero Knowledge Proofs (eg STARKs, cc @StarkWareLtd) enable outsourced verifiable computation, giving you confidence somebody executed a computation correctly, without you having to run the full computation https://twitter.com/...
Samer Kamal / @samerkamal: Common sense analysis. tldr: the complexity of our current web doesn't allow for true decentralization. https://twitter.com/...
Nicole Perlroth / @nicoleperlroth: An incredibly lucid discussion of web3. Tldr: It's not as decentralized as you were led to believe. Thanks for this @moxie https://twitter.com/...
Heather Adkins / @argvee: A nice write up. TL;DR - out of necessity, web3 is already experiencing necessary platform centralization (and below-par privacy - eek), despite design goals to be decentralized; it's early days but likely has the momentum to continue. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Seibert / @jeffseibert: “When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use.” - @moxie The elephant in the room.
Jack Morse / @jmorse_: These deep dive on “Web3” from @moxie, the founder of @signalapp, is spectacular. “All this means that if your NFT is removed from OpenSea, it also disappears from your wallet.” https://moxie.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Stephen Pimentel / @stephenpiment: A key takeaway: “We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure.
@lcamtuf: This is a very good technical analysis: https://moxie.org/... I'd note, though, that technical novelty, merit, or fidelity doesn't necessarily matter much. Transmeta vs Twitter. Your odds are better if you inspire millions than if you impress dozens of us nerds.
Craig Mod / @craigmod: “When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much ‘better’ in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone.” https://moxie.org/...
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: If a platform is merely a proxy to data it doesn't own, and it turns evil, people will switch. Not owning the data counts for a lot.
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: These points aside, the post is great and I basically agree with the overall premise. Thx for posting it @moxie and welcome to web3 (sort of) :) We could def use your help figuring out the client pieces (which Signal has done a great job on) and a bunch of other stuff.
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: As a result, there are a lot of “hybrid” web2/web3 apps during this phase of web3 development. That doesn't mean the overall trend is bad though. I think it's great that more and more web3/decentralized technologies are being developed.
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: 1. For NFTs, some keep their data in IPFS (decentralized file storage) or in the smart contract itself for procedurally generated images. We (as a community) should probably move more to solutions like this over time, since it is indeed more decentralized to build them that way.
Alex Hern / @alexhern: It's just increasingly impossible to believe that smart people honestly think there is a there there https://moxie.org/...
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: Really great post by my friend @moxie https://moxie.org/... Raises some valid points. However a few notes...
Josh Elman / @joshelman: And a fantastic response from @brian_armstrong. Particularly in the insight that having the data centralized and open is the most important building block of differentiation https://twitter.com/...
@can: Maybe this is gatekeeping but so much of the Web 1/2 people were those who built it. Web3 seems like mostly people creating “content” about it without having zilch technical background and it's infuriating
@can: the part where almost ETH “clients” are basically an API calls blew me away when I figured out. It was already pretty suss that most DeFi crap happened on web apps / mobile phones but I thought they had their own backends / ETH clients. But no. They are all basically shims.
Aaron Levie / @levie: Too much of web3 discourse has remained at high level vision statements. Posts like Moxie's help break why these visions are much harder in practice, and why software architecture decisions really matter. https://moxie.org/...
Anil Dash / @anildash: This is the best technical analysis I've seen of web3, and the one I wish I'd had time to write. When I found out about the architecture of how blockchain interactions get translated in actual practice to user-accessible experiences, I thought I had to be wrong. I wasn't.
Anil Dash / @anildash: It's very very important but listen to credible, experienced technologists who actually do the work of trying to use the tech. https://twitter.com/...
Jack⚡️ / @jack: “It seems like we should take notice that from the very beginning, these technologies immediately tended towards centralization through platforms in order for them to be realized, ..., and that most participants don't even know or care it's happening.” https://twitter.com/...
Grady Booch / @grady_booch: An excellent, deeply technical analysis. “Almost all dApps use either Infura or Alchemy in order to interact with the blockchain...virtually all clients that wish to access it do so by simply trusting the outputs from these two companies without any further verification.” https://twitter.com/...
Aaron Levie / @levie: Eventually we'll be reminded again why “centralization” is valued by consumers, and why a mixed state of decentralization + centralization is the worst of both worlds.👇 https://twitter.com/...
Dmitri Alperovitch / @dalperovitch: “Eventually, all the web3 parts are gone, and you have a website for buying and selling JPEGS with your debit card” Terrific post on how web3 isn't really decentralized (or uses much cryptography) and, to the extent, that it is, it makes everything more expensive and unwieldy https://twitter.com/...
Dave Pell / @davepell: Agree. But it also seems to me that every tech we were hopeful about back in the day was abused by the bad guys. So we need to consider that this time around. It never occurred to us back then. https://twitter.com/...
@davidu: It's worth reading @moxie's “My first impressions of web3” to understand where things are today so that the future can be built better. Really good read, and still wagmi, of course. https://moxie.org/...
@_mg_: This is the first look at web3 & NFT that has been worth reading. Normally this topic is incoherent buzzword bingo and/or “I have big emotions”, with a whole lot of predatory opportunity created by the wide rift. But @moxie actually dove in & examined it. https://twitter.com/...
Erick Schonfeld / @erickschonfeld: “People don't want to run their own servers, and never will” https://moxie.org/...
@aeyakovenko: Something @solana ecosystem has been doing well. 1. Arweave is used for majority of nft data 2. Servers are such a pia, ironically there is a dozen providers 3. Wallets, exchanges, ramps, all use their own rpc infra What we could do better 🧵 https://twitter.com/...
Extremily Gorcenski / @emilygorcenski: This is an incredibly well-written post that very clearly explains in simple language for the most part why web3 fails to deliver on its most vociferously offered promises https://twitter.com/...
Nikhil Pahwa / @nixxin: Incredible depth & breadth of understanding in this piece from @moxie on Web 3...the kind you get from exceptional cybersecurity folks. Something I've been concerned about too: centralisation around Web3 platforms. & so much more. Already read it twice. https://moxie.org/...
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: General thoughts: It's still difficult to build things in a decentralized way (nascent tools), so you are seeing various apps/companies revert to using more centralized web2 techniques when they run into a hairy technical problem.
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: 4. There are more options than Infura and Alchemy. Access to simple blockchain data will be relatively commoditized. Which is good for decentralization.
Brian Armstrong / @brian_armstrong: 2. I agree with the overall point that clients don't behave like full nodes. However, there has been quite a bit of discussion about “light clients” in the crypto community even going back to the early days of Bitcoin/Ethereum, so i wouldn't say it hasn't been an area of focus.
Josh Elman / @joshelman: The best article I have read on Web3 in a while. The concept of distributing trust *without* distributing architecture is a fundamentally important one for the future of Web3. And one that Moxie gets so well wrt Signal https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: I basically argued this was what was going to happen as many apps would rely on OpenSea's API instead of the blockchain. Didn't realize major wallets were already doing this. In conclusion, web3 architecture is incompatible with mobile apps and there's excess centralization.
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: ⁃Based on @moxie's analysis, we can argue access to blockchain is centralized as most dApps go through APIs from Infura or Alchemy ⁃NFTs are already so centralized around OpenSea's API that when they delist an NFT it disappears from popular wallets like MetaMask & Rainbow.
M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler: This is just a brutal beat down. But just as “Finish Him” shows up on screen, he pulls back slightly with the notion that “it's fun” to thinker with this tech. Sure. But the underlying thesis is that this is all completely antithetical to the current hype, mantra, and rhetoric.
Kelsey D. Atherton / @athertonkd: “Blockchains are designed to be a network of peers, but not designed such that it's really possible for your mobile device or your browser to be one of those peers.” https://moxie.org/...
Tom Chatfield / @tomchatfield: Very good, this. “So much work, energy, and time has gone into creating a trustless distributed consensus mechanism, but virtually all clients that wish to access it do so by simply trusting the outputs from... two companies without any further verification.” https://twitter.com/...
Vladimir Vukicevic / @vvuk: I already retweeted this, but I'll do it again — this is an excellent writeup of “web3”. If you're wondering what this is, how it actually works, and regardless of what you may believe, why it's currently a house of cards: read Moxie's writeup. https://twitter.com/...
@amasad: Moxie is clearly not a hater, so I think people should read this. The last part spoke to me. No amount of decentralization will be worth making software harder to build. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Les Orchard / @lmorchard: Yeah, this stuff has vexed me somewhat in the small bits of quiet reading & tinkering I've done with things web3. Every tip of a toe I've dipped and I'm like, really? This is really how it's working? But that can't be right... https://moxie.org/... https://twitter.com/...
Brendan Dolan-Gavitt / @moyix: Very nice article from @moxie; I feel like this is the first thing I've read that gave a bunch of thoughtful and solid technical critiques of web3 as it exists today? [NB: I have spent ~0 time looking into web3] https://moxie.org/...
Stephen Pimentel / @stephenpiment: This critique of web3 from @moxie is the best I've read so far. He doesn't say: * it's mostly a scam, or * blockchains are worthless. He takes a detailed look at the present architectures for dApps and wallets and shows how they are technically lacking. https://moxie.org/...
P. Oscar Boykin / @posco: This is a great discussion of “web3” because 1. you can't say @moxie doesn't get the value of privacy, cryptography or protocols, 2. he actually built two apps himself as part of his exploration. Lastly, the fact that NFTs don't even include a hash 🤯 https://moxie.org/...
@timbray: “My first impressions of web3” by @moxie: https://moxie.org/... Very, very smart stuff, and considers issues I haven't seen anywhere else.
Jake Wharton / @jakewharton: Smart people writing factually about NFTs and web3 is like deadpan comedy. I always think we're at peak dumb shit with these technologies but they always find innovative ways to out-dumb shit each other. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Seibert / @jeffseibert: When I tweeted 2 weeks ago that Bitcoin and Ethereum are both “more centralized than you imagine”... And @jack teased me about it... THIS is exactly what I was referring to! Huge props to @moxie for being far more thorough and more eloquent than I: https://moxie.org/...
@gramofdata: This is a wonderful summary of NFTs and blockchain tech in general. NFTs generally sound dumb at first, but if you really dig in and learn more about them you'll find that they are actually very dumb. https://twitter.com/...
Kenn White / @kennwhite: The current state of Web 3.0 distributed crypto is mostly neither distributed nor crypto. It is, however, pretty clearly a gold rush & nerd paradise. This technical analysis by @moxie is the best I've seen. https://moxie.org/...
@villi: This is an excellent and required reading for anybody looking at web3. I am smarter for reading this. Thank you @moxie for this thoughtful essay. https://moxie.org/...
Laurie Voss / @seldo: An excellent lower-level look at how NFTs and other crypto tech are already consolidating rapidly, even at the lowest levels, into a handful of centralized platforms. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Gladstein / @gladstein: “All this means that if your NFT is removed from OpenSea, it also disappears from your wallet. It doesn't functionally matter that my NFT is indelibly on the blockchain somewhere, because the wallet (and increasingly everything else in the ecosystem) is just using OpenSea API” https://twitter.com/...
Chris Riley / @mchrisriley: This is a fantastic engineering takedown of the fundamental fragility of what's being so hyped right now as “web3”. It's really not decentralized, it's just shifting consolidated power onto less efficient blockchain tech. Should be called “web2-blockchain” instead. https://twitter.com/...
| Vitalik Buterin / r/ethereum on Reddit: |
Ethereum co-founder responds: “the properly authenticated decentralized blockchain world is coming”, but is slowed by “limited technical resources and funding” — The word “server” imo is not very useful in the blockchain context; it combines together a bundle of concepts that are best treated separately.
Tweets: @photomatt, @vitalikbuterin, @ricmac, @ibogost, @coinbureau, @anildash, @daphnehk, @ryanwatkins_, @fleupold_, @leerzeit, @mistydemeo, @alexktong, @jeffjarvis, @dadiomov, @jeffjarvis, @mflaxman, @bigmarh, @_anuragarjun, @thoughtland, @dsilverman, @julespolonetsky, @elegantlywasted, @licuende, @choire, @patrickruffini, @johnbattelle, @notjessewalker, @buzz, @albertwenger, @mala, @dymaxion, @theycallmedan_, @y_folla, @realpauleverton, @anamitra, @coloradotravis, @jacksondame, @simondlr, @mathewi, @folletto, @ben_golub, @biellacoleman, @seikatsu, @danfinlay, @alan_donatiello, @vitalikbuterin, @c1aranmurray, @glennf, and @winter
More:
Tweets:
Matt Mullenweg / @photomatt: People seem to be redefining Web 2.0 as Facebook, etc, that own data, but Web 2.0 at the time was platforms like WordPress, Odeo, Six Apart, Flickr, Technorati, and https://del.icio.us/ that had open data and interoperated. https://www.flickr.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Vitalik.Eth / @vitalikbuterin: @moxie Responded! I think the status quo comes from a present-day “missing middle” where we have centralized-but-easy things and decentralized-but-hard things, but new tech (w lots of cryptography!) actually is on the cusp of giving us the best of both worlds. https://www.reddit.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Richard MacManus / @ricmac: Vitalik's response is the same it's been for the past 7-8 years: the “new tech” you ordered is not currently available, please check back tomorrow. https://twitter.com/...
Ian Bogost / @ibogost: The OG Web 2.0 crowd were naive idealists who didn't foresee their obvious, eventual decline by centralized capture. The web3 proponents either know decentralization is just rhetoric or else won't care when it consolidates, because their ideal is wealth, not cyberlibertarianism. https://twitter.com/...
@coinbureau: Found this quite an interesting read. Yes, #Web3 is going to transform our lives, but there are still centralised points of failure. Knowing the weak points helps us built a stronger ecosystem. https://twitter.com/...
Anil Dash / @anildash: This is one of the most important aspects of Web 2.0 that web3 advocates have tried to retcon. That generation also started with optimistic creators talking about decentralized, user-owned, open protocols (open standards, even!) that would empower people. Guess how it played out. https://twitter.com/...
Daphne Keller / @daphnehk: As @photomatt points out here, the Web3 discussion seems to retcon Web2 as if centralization had been its goal. But Web1 and Web2, like Web3, thought they were decentralizing. Right up until market forces and human behavior started pushing the other way. https://twitter.com/...
Ryan Watkins / @ryanwatkins_: Thoughtful critique on some of the pitfalls of Web 3 as it's currently architected today. There's still many points of centralization that prevent most users users from fully benefiting from decentralization. Luckily decentralized web infrastructure is otw (Arweave, Pokt, etc). https://twitter.com/...
Felix Leupold / @fleupold_: Agree with the concern that people's desire for convenience may turn web3 into a web2x2. However another key aspect of web3 is its power of permissionless innovation: Moxie built a collective artwork platform that attracted $40k over the course of a few days https://twitter.com/...
Stefan W. Huber / @leerzeit: I'm beginning to think that Jack might actually be one of those few who is genuinely honest about decentralization. https://twitter.com/...
Misty / @mistydemeo: It's easy to forget that one of the big things people were talking about as recently ten years ago was “mashups”, and the promise of what you could do via open APIs from various proprietary services. I'd argue we've been in a “web/3” for many years now & it's siloization. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Tong / @alexktong: 2 sides to the web3 argument - super interesting read. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis: This thread as a post: https://buzzmachine.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Dimitri Dadiomov / @dadiomov: Great read about the differences between rhetoric and practice in web3. Decentralization sounds intriguing but specialization of labor is a powerful thing, and technology bends towards centralization, even in web3 itself. Don't build things you can already buy. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis: I've been thinking about @photomatt's response to @brian_armstrong's response to @moxie's excellent post about Web 3. Some responses in return. tl;dr: I think @photomatt + WordPress provide much of the model @moxie seeks in the end. 1/ https://twitter.com/...
Michael Flaxman / @mflaxman: .@VitalikButerin on why web3 is so centralized: “a lot of it comes down to limited technical resources and funding.” Lack of funding!? https://twitter.com/...
Lamar Wilson / @bigmarh: One thing I don't agree with is People won't want to run their own servers. That may be true if you call them servers. But almost every home in the US has a game console. These have the hardware to be servers and no one even thinks about it...@moxie https://twitter.com/...
Anurag Arjun / @_anuragarjun: Well written, thoughtful article on web3 and crypto apps. But web3 is not exactly “replace web2 servers and clients with web3”. web3 is a good catch-all term which exemplifies some of the properties of web3/crypto apps and infra, but is not literally accurate nomenclature. https://twitter.com/...
Pat Kane / @thoughtland: Correct. But it's a mixed story. RSS was explicitly strangled by Web 2.0 enterprises, trying to lock data/users into their enchanted gardens of (mineable) interaction https://techcrunch.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Dwight Silverman / @dsilverman: Looking at the web3 debate, nicely contextualized by @photomatt, and remembering what went down with Web 2.0, I am reminded of this from “Battlestar Galactica”. “All of this has happened before, and will happen again.” https://twitter.com/...
Jules Polonetsky / @julespolonetsky: Responses to @moxie are perhaps the most telling description of web3. Actual experts like Ethereum founder, Coinbase CEO, respectfully conceding validity but pointing to possible solutions. 1000s of crypto groupies claiming Moxie is clueless. https://twitter.com/...
Rahul Ganjoo / @elegantlywasted: 💯 (some of us were there!) https://twitter.com/...
@licuende: Technology shows its weaknesses after reaching peak adoption. At that point we keep for granted its benefits, and all we see is the weaknesses. When that happens, it's time for something new. https://twitter.com/...
@choire: “There was a time when 50 people working on a software project wasn't considered a ‘small team.’” https://twitter.com/...
Patrick Ruffini / @patrickruffini: The basic problem with web3 discourse is that people fundamentally don't want open platforms. All the original open Web 2.0 platforms died and were replaced by centralized gatekeepers. https://twitter.com/...
John Battelle / @johnbattelle: Let's argue about Web3, continued... love to see this kind of healthy debate. https://twitter.com/...
Jesse Walker / @notjessewalker: I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers it this way. When I had conversations about “Web 2.0” in the mid-'00s, the big idea was that the Web was becoming more user-driven and participatory. The pitch was not “Let's build centralized platforms that spy on us!” https://twitter.com/...
Buzz Andersen / @buzz: This is something I've been thinking about too. Literally a defining feature of Web 2.0, as originally conceived, was interoperability. https://twitter.com/...
Albert Wenger / @albertwenger: Finally #web3 gets the quality of critics it deserves https://twitter.com/...
Danny O'Brien / @mala: Thank god we gave up so quickly on that idea, and stand ready to get really mad at anybody working through how to do it now It's hard to believe we're in our fifties now, and so neatly managing to avoid the traps of the grumpy old revolutionaries we grew up with https://twitter.com/...
Eleanor Saitta / @dymaxion: This. The big platforms and the ownership grabs were not immediate. Paid services and open data used to be relatively common — they just didn't make enough money fast enough for the oligarchs. https://twitter.com/...
They Call Me Dan / @theycallmedan_: The issue is obvious decentralized projects are mostly ignored outside of Bitcoin. Too many billionaires with a savior complex that do not understand how to build sustainable token models that encourage community involvement. https://twitter.com/...
@y_folla: @moxie is right about Web3 not being fully realized until we can truly decentralize the RPC layer. That's why we're betting on protocols instead of AWS & Co. I see @graphprotocol replacing the need for centralized infra providers. WBU? https://twitter.com/...
Paul Everton / @realpauleverton: This is Vitalik's move every time. Oh yes it sucks right now but when my vaporware comes out (next year!) everything will be solved. https://twitter.com/...
@anamitra: “If there's one thing I hope we've learned about the world, it's that people do not want to run their own servers” 🤣 https://twitter.com/...
@coloradotravis: “Missing middle” — like a body with no torso. Just some assembled limbs and a head thats swearing the plan is gonna work. That's not my experience with how product development works: usually it's a small, entire organism that grows into an adult. https://twitter.com/...
@jacksondame: yes exactly, let's stop trying because we didn't nail it the first time... that'll show em https://twitter.com/...
Simon de la Rouviere / @simondlr: Miss this era. Era of the ‘mashup’. Open APIs, no limits, free interoperation until the walled gardens started coming up or businesses closed down or acquired. :( https://twitter.com/...
Mathew Ingram / @mathewi: What would things look like if Friendfeed had won and Facebook lost? https://twitter.com/...
Erin ‘Folletto’ Casali / @folletto: This. I'm finding really odd how history is being rewritten these days. If anything concentration in a few monoliths was the reason Web 2.0 ended. https://twitter.com/...
Ben Golub / @ben_golub: Update: Vitalik agrees with the post's criticisms of the current situation https://twitter.com/...
@biellacoleman: Moxie Marlinspike >> My first impressions of web3: great read and how I wish more developers would be wiling to call out the BS being peddled via l blockchain https://moxie.org/... via @moxie
Sten Tamkivi / @seikatsu: I liked the tone and thoughtfulness of @moxie's critique on current state of decentralization of Web3 making rounds today. Suggest you also read @balajis build upon this: the 2400 baud modems of our era. https://twitter.com/...
Dan Finlay / @danfinlay: I thought this was generally very even handed, but I think there are a few dimensions Moxie missed. One is the way having a logic layer that the app does not own creates a more competitive centralization phase. An abuse of power is more accountable when users have easier exit. https://twitter.com/...
Alan Donatiello / @alan_donatiello: Fascinating discourse on Web 3.0 - seems that integrated front / back end wallet verticalization could be a powerful position! e.g. @CoinbaseWallet + @BisonTrails and @MetaMask + @infura_io https://www.reddit.com/...
Vitalik.Eth / @vitalikbuterin: @mattscottcrum @moxie Pre-2018 not enough funding. Post 2018 lots of funding, but not yet enough time for most of it to turn into software being used by people.
@c1aranmurray: Users might not care about decentralisation (until something goes wrong of course) but developers do because it's potentially their ass on the line. Users will soon not have the choice but to use properly decentralised applications. https://twitter.com/...
| Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal: |
How the peer pressure to be a part of the blue bubble iMessage text groups keeps US teens locked into Apple's ecosystem — The iPhone maker cultivated iMessage as a must-have texting tool for teens. Android users trigger a just-a-little-less-cool green bubble: 'Ew, that's gross.'
Tweets: @lockheimer, @android, @ikumavr, @backlon, @charlesarthur, @noahpinion, @manan, @iupdate, @harrymccracken, @jeanqasaur, @indulgentgeek, @ahmdnazrafq, @saschasegan, @thijsniks, @journeydan, @maxwinebach, @ronamadeo, @ztlaidlaw, @dankim, @ronamadeo, @ptiongson, @john_hudson, @devonthome, @scottew, @ernestwongbwm, @liamspradlin, @jmwilt21, @ethanschoonover, @anshelsag, @sumirmeghani, @brianstelter, @film_girl, @ranting_monkey, @philnickinson, @chrismessina, @thegalox_, @neilcybart, @neilcybart, @jtseo9, @keithedwards, @lepp, @thehairforceone, @parkerortolani, @kjlabuz, @jameswester, @mattzeitlin, @bigmeaninternet, @milesabovetech, @theryanford, @risleyjm, @stevenbward, @onelinders, @mims, @acitrano, @sizpatel, @michaelmiraflor, @shortformernie, @jacknicas, @saranbyte, @wgkantai, @parkerortolani, and @dsilverman
More:
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider: Green texts in iMessages nudge teens to use iPhones
Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google exec gives harshest rebuke yet of iMessage lock-in effect in push for RCS on iOS
Anu Joy / iPhone Hacks: Google SVP Accuses Apple of Using iMessage to Bully Teens Into Buying its Products
Omar Sohail / Wccftech: Google Senior Vice President Claims Apple's iMessage Lock-in System is Designed to Lure Customers to Switch to iPhones
Tweets:
Hiroshi Lockheimer / @lockheimer: Apple's iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy. Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing. The standards exist today to fix this. https://twitter.com/...
@android: iMessage should not benefit from bullying. Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Let's fix this as one industry. 💚💙 https://twitter.com/...
@ikumavr: @SadlyItsBradley Apple is so edgy and wants to be special. In this case i find it really awesome. F the metaverse. Build an awesome VR Device to do all kind of cool things with it. Everyone who uses the term “metaverse” doesnt know what they are talking about.
Dieter Bohn / @backlon: iPhone has a 70% marketshare in the US for 18-24 year olds 😲😲😲 https://www.wsj.com/...
Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur: Certainly nobody could ever accuse Google of locking anyone in to a single messaging system. https://twitter.com/...
Noah Smith / @noahpinion: If you want to do Big Tech antitrust, I guess you could go after iMessage. https://twitter.com/...
@manan: https://www.techmeme.com/... I mean, this is true for me too. Have you ever been in a group chat with 4 blue bubbles and THAT 1 green bubble??
Sam Kohl / @iupdate: Green bubble 🤧 https://twitter.com/...
Harry McCracken / @harrymccracken: The fact that iMessage is an Apple-only social network did not happen with “little fanfare.” I attended the keynote where its arrival was one of the major announcements. https://www.wsj.com/...
@jeanqasaur: Android users I've got your back! Friends have previously introduced me by saying, “The interesting thing about Jean is she does not use an iPhone.” SOMEBODY has to use the other thing. 😁 https://twitter.com/...
Nickolas / @indulgentgeek: So it's Apple's fault that Google is incapable of building a cohesive messaging strategy and a competent product? https://twitter.com/...
@ahmdnazrafq: Remind me again how many messaging apps Google tried to build and failed repeatedly... and now they're whining. https://twitter.com/...
Sascha Segan / @saschasegan: I've found that at least anecdotally, the platforms have an interesting mapping to ethnicity, family income, and urbanization among youth. I'd like to see more data on that. I've often been suspicious of Piper Sandler's demographic skews. https://twitter.com/...
Thijs Niks / @thijsniks: It's just funny that the iMessage vs RCS discussion is a purely American obsession. Everyone else uses WhatsApp. https://twitter.com/...
Daniel Bader / @journeydan: Just in case anyone questioned Apple's iPhone XR/iPhone SE strategy https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Max Weinbach / @maxwinebach: Everyone seems to think this is a one sided solution for consumers, but it really isn't. I can't just start using a different app, my friends would need to as well. If I want to text a new person, they would need the app. It requires everyone to install and sign up for the app. https://twitter.com/...
Ron Amadeo / @ronamadeo: Since the launch of iMessage in 2011, Google has launched 13 different messaging apps. Maybe take the L on this one. You deserve it. https://arstechnica.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Zach Laidlaw / @ztlaidlaw: Using the official Android account to attack Apple's iMessage tactics in a way that encourages its followers to pressure (IE bully) Apple to change those tactics is the essence of hypocrisy. If you want to fix the problem, go to Apple directly; don't sick your followers on them. https://twitter.com/...
Dan Kim / @dankim: Helluva take coming from a Google exec. Remind me again what open standards and altruistic business model Google follows for all their primary money making businesses like search and ads? Anyway looking forward to the 398th new messaging app! https://twitter.com/...
Ron Amadeo / @ronamadeo: Google currently runs eight different messaging services. Google Messages/RCS Google Chat/Hangouts Google Voice Google Photos Google Pay Google Maps Business Messages Google Stadia Google Assistant Messaging Google messaging is the worst and most fragmented it has ever been.
Tiongson / @ptiongson: The cultivation of iMessage is consistent with Apple's broader strategy to tie its hardware, software and services together in a self-reinforcing world that encourages people to pay premium for relatively expensive gadgets and remain loyal. https://www.techmeme.com/...
John Hudson / @john_hudson: Jocelyn Maher said her friends and younger sister have mocked her for exchanging texts with potential paramours using Android phones. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, his texts are green,’ and my sister literally went, 'Ew that's gross'” https://www.wsj.com/...
Devon / @devonthome: I don't really get this debate. How is an industry standard supposed to be decided on when Google discontinues and launches a new messaging app every time they sneeze? RCS is still a mess. Allo is likely unsupported. Hangouts was killed. https://twitter.com/...
Scott Wessman / @scottew: This makes me want to switch away from iOS on principle https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Ernest Wong / @ernestwongbwm: $AAPL's dominance among youth re @WSJ : “The social pressure is palpable, with some reporting being ostracized or singled out after switching away from iPhones.” https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Jason W / @jmwilt21: As a 23 year old in the US you could have said iPhones had 90% marketshare and that wouldn't have surprised me. No matter where I am, I will almost definitely be the only one with an android phone lol. Apple has a tight grip in thr US and it will only grow as my generation ages. https://twitter.com/...
@ethanschoonover: As someone that has deployed communications tools for large numbers of teens (as both an educator, school-tech-person, and parent): here's my hot take on this WSJ article... https://www.wsj.com/...
Anshel Sag / @anshelsag: Google had multiple chances and blew it, hell, they STILL have a chance and cannot coherently deliver a competitive solution. https://twitter.com/...
@sumirmeghani: Apple's use of UI to “brand” messages exchanged by iPhone users differently than Android users is one of the most underrated product features of the last decade. May have negative consequences down the road but for now it creates FOMO every time. https://www.wsj.com/...
Brian Stelter / @brianstelter: “Pressure to be a part of the blue text group is the product of decisions by Apple executives starting years ago that have, with little fanfare, built iMessage into one of the world's most widely used social networks...” https://www.wsj.com/...
Christina Warren / @film_girl: Makes total sense. iMessage is a really strong social/class signal in the US (I'm def guilty as a blue bubble bougie bitch). Also, the green bubbles do fuck up the thread! https://twitter.com/...
Ranting Monkey / @ranting_monkey: Apple pushed inferior products through exploiting young people's desire to be cool? I'm shocked. https://twitter.com/...
Phil / @philnickinson: I used to have new Android phones before they were released. My pre-teen (at the time) daughter wanted nothing to do with them. https://twitter.com/...
Messina.Eth / @chrismessina: @neilcybart This could have been much more interesting had the WSJ chose to report on the shadow #AppleSocialNetwork that's built into iOS 15 and macOS Monterey that cuts directly at Facebook and may leverage their duopoly power. But they didn't.
Anthony / @thegalox_: What makes this funnier is that Google has tried to copy the things he is now criticizing from Apple. “Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products” you wanted to do the same with all the failed Google messaging apps and with nearby share https://twitter.com/...
Neil Cybart / @neilcybart: Apple competitors always position “marketing” as the reason behind Apple's success. Competitors don't want to admit that consumers enjoy the byproducts of Apple's design philosophy - a philosophy that is very difficult to replicate outside of Apple. https://twitter.com/...
Neil Cybart / @neilcybart: WSJ editor: It's been a while since we had an Apple story. Ideas? WSJ reporter: How about iMessage popularity among teens? Editor: Boring. Any way to spice that up? Reporter: Apple leverages teen bullying & peer pressure to give itself an edge in messaging Editor: Bingo. Write it
Dr. Jin Seo / @jtseo9: Joe Camel would side with Apple on this issue. Gotta keep the kids hooked. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Keith Edwards / @keithedwards: And it works. I tried switching to android and my friends said they wouldn't have a group chat with me anymore because iMessage no longer worked. https://twitter.com/...
@lepp: Same argument about BBM in 2010 didn't hold up. Need more than one 🔒 to be effective. https://twitter.com/...
Parker Ortolani / @parkerortolani: Having a better product is not bullying. https://twitter.com/...
Kevin LaBuz / @kjlabuz: “Never date a green texter.” Good read from the @WSJ on Apple's iMessage blue bubbles as a status symbol and lock-in strategy. “I've had people with Androids apologize that they have Androids and don't have iMessage,” she said. https://www.wsj.com/... $AAPL $GOOG https://twitter.com/...
James Wester / @jameswester: I'm sure this says something about me, but I actually saw a former coworker's bubble was blue the other day when he texted me. He had always been a green bubble guy. I thought “New IPhone.” I didn't necessarily judge, but I did notice. https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin: This is funny because Apple has *made their product worse* in order to achieve differentiation https://twitter.com/...
Malcolm Harris / @bigmeaninternet: Finally some attention on this form of prejudice/discrimination https://www.wsj.com/...
@milesabovetech: Wow! I actually made it into the WSJ, it's an interesting so go check it out https://www.wsj.com/....
Ryan Ford / @theryanford: Apple learned something from Blackberry back in the day. https://twitter.com/...
Steve Ward / @stevenbward: I've been learning a lot about unconscious bias, but this is a whole new level. “Never Date a Green Texter” is absurd. I work on a Macbook Pro & have an iPad Pro, buy you'll have to pull my Galaxy S21 Ultra (soon to be S22 Ultra) from my cold dead hands. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Peter Linder / @onelinders: 40% of US consumers use iPhones, an number raising to 7️⃣0️⃣% for 18-24 year olds, with blue text messages playing a key role #Smartphones #Messaging https://www.wsj.com/...
@mims: Why Apple's iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Anthony Citrano / @acitrano: “The iPhone maker cultivated iMessage as a must-have texting tool for teens. Android users trigger a just-a-little-less-cool green bubble: 'Ew, that's gross.'” https://www.wsj.com/...
Sahil Patel / @sizpatel: A great follow-up to this piece would be on the 30-year-old contrarians who refuse to get iPhones because they don't wanna conform to social pressure. (Too many of them are my friends.) (And yes, they're all white dudes.) https://twitter.com/...
Michaelmiraflor.Eth / @michaelmiraflor: Not surprising but so fascinating from both business and sociological POVs: - ecosystem lock-in - competitive moat - switching costs - generational preference - peer pressure, in/out groups A great read about unexpected product/culture (vs market) fit. https://www.wsj.com/...
Ernie Smith / @shortformernie: In some ways I can't believe that this ostracism by text worked. In others it makes absolute sense. https://www.wsj.com/...
Jack Nicas / @jacknicas: Every iPhone user knows how one Android friend can ruin a group text. This is a smart @timkhiggins story on Apple's strategy to make that happen — which has led to teens on Android feeling ostracized: https://www.wsj.com/...
Saran / @saranbyte: I still don't understand why iMessage is so popular in the US - I've used it in the past, and it really has nothing special to offer compared to messaging apps like WhatsApp imo https://twitter.com/...
Wallace Kantai / @wgkantai: Incidentally, I think iMessage is perhaps the worst part of the Apple/ iOS experience. https://twitter.com/...
Parker Ortolani / @parkerortolani: Not sure any other consumer product in recent history has had a stronger competitive advantage than the iPhone with iMessage https://twitter.com/...
Dwight Silverman / @dsilverman: This @wsj story is a good look at the blue-vs-green bubble mystique of iMessage. But it (and other stories) get one thing wrong. It implies Android text bubbles are green, but NO ... YOUR bubbles go green when you chat with an Android user. 1/2 https://www.wsj.com/...
| Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: |
Gurman: Apple's mixed reality headset will not be an all-day device and will be meant for bursts of gaming, communication, and content consumption — Apple is widely expected to take the wraps off of its first mixed reality headset this year, with a focus on augmented reality and virtual reality experiences.
Tweets: @markgurman, @sadlyitsbradley, @vadimyuryev, @sadlyitsbradley, @biscuitman13, @thurrott, @mikeelgan, and @martinsfp
Source:
More:
Bogdan Popa / Softpedia News: iPhone SE 3 Could Launch in March or April
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Gurman: Apple likely to hold virtual event in March or April to announce iPhone SE 3
José Adorno / 9to5Mac: Report: Apple still several years away from adding major new health sensors to Apple Watch
Asma Hussain / iThinkDifferent: The metaverse is ‘off limits’ on Apple's AR/VR headset, device intended to be used for short periods of time
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Philip Elmer‑DeWitt: Mark Gurman: Next Apple event scheduled for March. Or maybe April
Rajesh Pandey / iPhone Hacks: Apple Could Hold Virtual Event in March or April to Launch iPhone SE 3
Tweets:
Mark Gurman / @markgurman: Lots of interest in my take on “Apple Reality” and the Metaverse https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Brad Lynch / @sadlyitsbradley: Batteries
Vadim Yuryev / @vadimyuryev: I think the new iPhone SE will come as a press release in April, not at an event. Apple will send it to a bunch of YouTube/TikTok creators and news publications for marketing. https://twitter.com/...
Brad Lynch / @sadlyitsbradley: Mark Gurman reports that he's been told pretty directly that the idea of a “metaverse” is off limits internally at Apple Apple's focus is said to be on a MR headset that is used for “bursts of gaming, communication and content consumption,” but it will not be “an all-day device”
@biscuitman13: @Techmeme @ChanceHMiller That's what they said about every addictive thing in human history....
Paul Thurrott / @thurrott: So, the Apple Watch team did the battery work then.
| Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: |
Matter, the smart home standard backed by Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and others, gained significant momentum at CES, with ~30 companies showcasing support — The soon-to-be smart home standard gained momentum in Las Vegas — Two years ago, on the floor of CES 2020 … More:
| Tracy Wang / CoinDesk: |
A look at the turmoil inside Pudgy Penguins, one of the most successful NFT projects, as community members clash with founders over the project's fate — There's trouble brewing in the huddle. — The beloved NFT project Pudgy Penguins voted out its founders on Thursday after they allegedly failed …
Tweets: @carnage4life, @merket, @samhouston, @coindesk, @mikejcasey, @wuestenigel, and @alphaxchange
More:
Ruby Layram / Bankless Times: Pudgy Penguins Voted Out Their Founders After Failing To Deliver Goals
NFT Decrypted / Tokenizing the Metaverse: PudgyPenguin: The Power of The NFT Community
Tweets:
@carnage4life: Yesterday, I tweeted a DAO is a chat room masquerading as a shareholder meeting. Today there's drama as members of the Pudgy Penguins NFT community who are upset that their NFT prices aren't spiking like Bored Apes have voted out the founders. https://www.coindesk.com/...
@merket: The industry needs accountability and credibility. DAOs are great until there are major disagreements. Brands and artists deserve more. https://www.coindesk.com/...
Sam Houston / @samhouston: NFT projects are looking like get rich quick schemes more and more. For the founders. Create a project with a small team, start a discord server and sell several million dollars worth of jpegs, then bounce. https://twitter.com/...
@coindesk: The clash over the beloved project @Pudgy_Penguins is raising governance questions surrounding NFT communities. @0x_bae reports. https://www.coindesk.com/...
| Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal: |
Ex-Facebook director Katie Harbath says social media will likely incubate future political violence if tech platforms or governments don't urgently intervene — Katie Harbath says she left Facebook disillusioned; now she pushes for more online guardrails — Katie Harbath joined Facebook … Tweets:
Newley Purnell / @newley: Facebook's Former Elections Boss Now Questions Social Media's Impact on Politics “I still believe social media has done more good than harm in politics, but it's close,” says @katieharbath. “Maybe it's 52-48—and trending south.” By @JeffHorwitz: https://www.wsj.com/...
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: I talked to @katieharbath regularly last year, and found her concerns about social media and elections to be both measured and scary as hell. One example: her argument that our habit in the US of protracted post-election ballot counting is reckless. https://www.wsj.com/...
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: Whether FB appropriately handled Stop the Steal is a secondary question, and one that people outside Meta have only a limited ability to influence. But GA, PA and AZ could arguably have prevented their elections (and election officials) from being drawn into crazytown.
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: I'm not bubbling with optimism these days, but if there's something concretely positive that came out of the last year of FB news, it's that these sorts of folks are out talking to press, legislators etc. Here's hoping for more.
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: This was arguably true in 2000, before the advent of MySpace. But with social media in the picture, there's a solid case that the price for dithering got higher in 2020, with vast election fraud conspiracies being created from snippets of opportunistically misinterpreted footage.
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: This is one of my favorite examples of Katie's suggested approach — that election risks need to be rethought for the current age, and that doing so shouldn't just be the platforms' job. It's an uncontroversial, even kinda boring way to head off something unbelievably dark.
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: This isn't a “social media problem” — it's a “failure of elections to adapt to social media problem.” No matter how much work platforms put into tamping down conspiracy theories during extended post-election vote tabulation, the discourse will get increasingly nuts.
Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz: Katie's not a doom and gloom sort, and frames ballot counting delays as an chance to fix something rather than a disaster in the making. I offhandedly said it seemed important to sort out before November 2024. She interrupted me to say she's worried about the primaries first.
Dr. Rebekah Tromble / @rebekahktromble: A great profile of @katieharbath by @JeffHorwitz @WSJ. Much respect for Katie and the important work underway at the @Integrity_Inst. https://www.wsj.com/...
Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller: People who helped build Facebook cannot be trusted to reform Facebook. I really have no idea why anyone takes this crap seriously. https://www.wsj.com/...
Jason Kint / @jason_kint: I'm fairly certain her scorekeeping skills lost all credibility during the post-2016 cover-up which included her office. But sure... have at it. https://twitter.com/...
@can: ahh it's that time of the year where ex-facebook people try to wash away their crimes after having made bank... https://twitter.com/...
@gchaslot: Ouch. Coming from Facebook's former election boss this is quite telling. https://twitter.com/...
Melissa Ryan / @melissaryan: This attempt at a rebrand is gross. Katie led a lot of Facebook's election work! What's sad is that it will probably work. https://www.wsj.com/...
@blackamazon: She's gone skate because we consistently let the race and gender issues , WHICH SHE OVERSAW slide . https://twitter.com/...
@nkulw: Lol I remember trying to talk to her for stories when I covered FB four years ago at Vice. So glad she's speaking to press now that she's made bank and wants to be recognized as a good person ♥️ https://twitter.com/...
@soychicka: Again, maybe part of the problem is only paying attn to people who worked inside the company rather than those outside who accurately predicted the potential risks social media pose to society and democracy and thusly would NOT work to facilitate that threat. #bringBackOTA https://twitter.com/...
| Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer: |
An open-source developer, who expressed regret for supporting “Fortune 500s”, breaks ~19K projects by corrupting NPM libraries with millions of weekly downloads — Users of popular open-source libraries ‘colors’ and ‘faker’ were left stunned after they saw their applications …
Tweets: @bleepincomputer, @marak, @vessonsecurity, @sgomez, @jgamblin, @mycoliza, and @kennwhite
More:
Tweets:
@bleepincomputer: Scoop: Developer sabotages ‘colors.js’ and ‘faker.js’ open-source projects, breaking thousands of projects, in retaliation against big businesses exploiting open-source - @Ax_Sharma https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ ...
@marak: NPM has reverted to a previous version of the faker.js package and Github has suspended my access to all public and private projects. I have 100s of projects. #AaronSwartz https://twitter.com/...
@vessonsecurity: This is fucking irresponsible. If you have problems with business using your free code for free, don't publish free code. By sabotaging your own widely used stuff, you hurt not only big business but anyone using it. This trains people not to update, 'coz stuff might break. https://twitter.com/...
Sergio Gómez / @sgomez: Removing your own code from @github is a violation of their Terms of Service? WTF? This is a kidnapping. We need to start decentralizing the hosting of free software source code. https://twitter.com/...
| Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: |
A look at the opportunities and challenges of ultra-wideband, as UWB beacons see widespread adoption in smartphones, smartwatches, and other devices — The ultra-wideband, or UWB, technology that powers Apple's AirTags could reshape how we interact with devices—if companies can overcome privacy concerns and other hurdlesTweets:
@wsj: For all the attention on tech companies and location tracking in recent years, our gadgets are actually surprisingly bad at knowing precisely where they are at any given moment. That's about to change. https://www.wsj.com/...
Subrahmanyam Kvj / @sub8u: Can Ultra Wide Band help improve our lives and reduce dependency on car keys, passwords, etc. Can it do so without being an additional vector for privacy & security leaks? Good read from @mims. Interesting to observe how UWB and Amazon's Sidewalk evolve. https://www.wsj.com/...
| William Turton / Bloomberg: |
Profile of Anne Neuberger, the NSC deputy advisor at the center of a bureaucratic tussle between US agencies over controlling cybersecurity policy — Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration's Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, organized a virtual summit on ransomware for Oct. 13, 2021.Tweets:
Jan Lemnitzer / @janlemnitzer: 'The White House has “created an awkward situation from having nobody in charge of cyber to having two people in charge of cyber” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Mike Shepard / @mikeshepard4: Smart and deeply reported piece by @WilliamTurton for @business https://twitter.com/...
@manan: anyone wanting more control of cyber policies and cybersecurity is only going to do it because cybersecurity fails otherwise. It needs a strong centralized approach. So good for anyone wanting more control. https://www.techmeme.com/...
@blmohr: “We have accomplished more to modernize national cybersecurity in the public and private sector in that last 12 months than in the past decade.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Eric Geller / @ericgeller: Interesting @WilliamTurton story about Anne Neuberger's rise to cyber policy dominance — with some 👀 anecdotes about friction with other senior officials. https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Kevin Madden / @kevinmaddendc: Neuberger is brilliant. One of the few comforts I have about today's cybersecurity policy challenges is at least AN is involved w/ trying to solve them: Anne Neuberger: The Former NSA Official Shaping Biden's Cybersecurity Policy - Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Jonathan Guyer / @mideastxmidwest: Revealing CV item from Anne Neuberger, Biden's cyber director: “The Snowden leak left the NSA to deal with angry and embarrassed corporations it depended on for intelligence operations, and Neuberger was central to the agency's efforts to clean things up.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
| Max Chafkin / Bloomberg: |
Strava CEO Michael Horvath says the app's revenue increased 68% YoY in 2021, suggesting a revenue of approximately $170M and a paid subscriber base of 2M to 3M — The app's revenue spiked 68% in 2021. But retaining the New Year's resolution crowd is a perennial problem, especially come quitter's day—aka Jan. 17.Tweets:
@bw: Strava's revenue spiked 68% in 2021. Inside the fitness app's pandemic growth, diehard fanbase, and “quitter's day” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@hkanji: While Peloton usage started falling in mid-2021, coinciding with a roughly 70% drop in its stock price since July, Strava users have been more willing to stick around. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Ivan Levingston / @ivanlevingston: My favorite sign from running the Philadelphia marathon this year said “Pain is temporary, Strava is forever” That's true not just for running stats, but the company itself is enduring well amid the pandemic. Via @chafkin https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Max Chafkin / @chafkin: did a piece on strava, which has always been sorta an odd duck of a tech company — a non-advertising focused, smallish, social network for a very small audience. well! it's getting bigger, as i reported this week in @bw https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Edward Russell / @byerussell: “About 41% of the 30,000-person field in the 2021 New York City Marathon recorded their race on the app; at the London Marathon it was 52%.” Strava continues to surge, with an IPO likely, as long as it gets past January 17, aka quitter's day. @chafkin https://www.bloomberg.com/...
| Jay Caspian Kang / New York Times: |
How Ryan's World, launched in 2015 with a then three-year-old Ryan Kaji, grew into a content behemoth with 10 YouTube channels and deals with Amazon and others — Ten-year-old Ryan Kaji and his family have turned videos of him playing with toys into a multimillion-dollar empire.Tweets:
Mathew Ingram / @mathewi: I admire what Ryan and his parents have achieved, but the life of an influencer can be problematic. What does Ryan's future look like? Is he just a somewhat nicer version of Jake Paul, trying to invent weirder stunts to recapture a faded glory? https://www.nytimes.com/...
Dr. Sarah T. Roberts / @ubiquity75: “'This show is dumb,' I'll sometimes say. She almost always ignores me. Her stony silence then prompts me to try to think of a show that's not dumb, which is an impossible task — because what kids' programming isn't dumb?” Um. Ever heard of Sesame Street? https://www.nytimes.com/...
@nytimes: He has multiple YouTube channels, cable television shows and plays with toys during live appearances. At just 10 years old, Ryan Kaji, whose YouTube channels make up “Ryan's World,” has turned his daily videos into a multimillion-dollar empire. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Gaurav Dalmia / @gdalmiathinks: Over the last 7 years, 10-year-old boy Ryan Kaji and his family have created a toy empire on YouTube — amassing billions of views and earning tens of millions of dollars each year. Now there are 10 channels that make up “Ryan's World”. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Tom Ziller / @teamziller: Fascinating piece on a topic I've been curious about. Like JCK, I bristle when my kid has wanted to watch toy play videos. Something feels sinister there in a way it doesn't for the (highly merchandised) cartoons? Hard to explain. https://twitter.com/...
Mahi / @mformahi: Putting this here because I read this yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since https://www.nytimes.com/...
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Fri. 11/22 - An LLM Siri But... Only The Year AFTER Next?
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Upcoming Tech Events
More News
| Aidan Moher / Wired: |
Tweets:
Aidan Moher / @adribbleofink: Art builds off its past to explore new corners of human imagination as styles and techniques emerge. Just as mosaics led to LCD watches and Pong, the pixel art of the past influences the building blocks for the future of gaming. https://www.wired.com/...
@tidunnontherunn: Nintendo has been a proponent of pixel-based gaming and other alternative art forms for the expression of the medium to this day. They did not try to kill pixel-based gaming experiences. They kept them alive with the Game Boy Advance and DS. https://twitter.com/...
Aidan Moher / @adribbleofink: “What Eastward does best is create a world that feels like the games we played growing up.” I spoke with brilliant creators @castpixel, @MaddyThorson, and @saint11 for this @WIRED piece about pixel art, modern gaming, and the retro beauty of games like Celeste and Eastward. https://twitter.com/...
@stymiedthoughts: Look, I'm not suggesting that @TheVGResource and @Newgrounds and sprite comics kept Pixel Art alive in between the death of the 16 bit generation and the rise of Indie games, but—wait yes. That's exactly what I'm suggesting. https://twitter.com/...
Pedro Medeiros / @saint11: Wired interviewed me @castpixel and @MaddyThorson about pixel art in this really cool article! https://www.wired.com/...
@nights108: I mean you can see pixel art used as early as stuff like Yume Nikki and Cave Story and then popularised hard by Minecraft, so, Celeste, I love you, but I don't think you're an innovator in this regard https://twitter.com/...
Pretty Obvious / @prettyobvious7: What a bizarre way to phrase the companies naturally moving forward with visual tech https://twitter.com/...
Chucklefish / @chucklefishltd: Lovely piece on the ethos of pixel art by @adribbleofink for @WIRED 🧡 https://www.wired.com/...
| Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: |
Tweets:
Rob Bailey / @rmb: Supply chain data FTW! https://techcrunch.com/...
Assent Compliance / @assentglobal: Featured in @TechCrunch: Assent spoke with @bayareawriter to share the news that we achieved a $350M funding milestone and the distinction of “unicorn” status, with a valuation of over $1 billion USD. Check it out here https://ow.ly/... #unicorn #innovation #supplychain https://twitter.com/...
| Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal: |
Tweets: @jason_kint, @edzitron, @yoda, @jason_kint, @wsj, @newley, and @dseetharaman
More:
Alyse Stanley / Gizmodo: Meta's Head of PR Leaves a Company on Fire
Jahnavi Nidumolu / Reuters: Facebook parent's head of communications leaves company
Edward Moyer / CNET: Facebook parent Meta's head of communications exits company
Tweets:
Jason Kint / @jason_kint: @edzitron What is rare is the breadth, depth and harms involved. Agree? They're not defending tobacco that kills the people who mostly choose to directly inhale it.
Drew Olanoff / @yoda: anyone on the “front line” at a company has to be absolutely 100% all in, that's why i hold a lot of facebook / meta's comms people super accountable. and as a reporter you can sense “half-assed-ness” when someone doesn't believe in what they're doing. https://twitter.com/...
Jason Kint / @jason_kint: Who would be surprised if having to run a spokesperson roulette 👆asking PR professionals to put their name out there to delay, deflect and at times cover up the harms of your company and leadership team is exhausting and demoralizing and not for everyone. https://www.reuters.com/...
@wsj: Meta Platforms' head of communications said he is leaving the company, creating a void at the top of the department managing the controversies surrounding the tech giant https://www.wsj.com/...
Newley Purnell / @newley: Meta's head of communications, John Pinette, said he is leaving the company in a Friday afternoon post to employees, creating a void at the top of the department managing the controversies surrounding the tech giant. @MeghanBobrowsky has the details: https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
| Aman Sethi / BuzzFeed News: |
Tweets:
@laocoonoftroy: “Don't ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.” -Max, “The Lost Boys” (1987) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
@wired: Meta's data center is said to be too big for a small town like Zeewolde. Via @WIREDUK https://www.wired.co.uk/...
Martijn Rasser / @martijnrasser: Meta's planned data center in Zeewolde “would span 166 hectares [410 acres]...and would devour 1,380 gigawatt-hours of energy a year, at least double what the municipality's 22,000 residents consume in the same period.” https://www.wired.com/... via @wired
@techwontsaveus: “Facebook's demand for secrecy around its data center in the Netherlands is the latest example of Big Tech's aggressive but covert strategy to squeeze concessions from local governments. The veil of secrecy minimizes public scrutiny and backlash.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
Bianca Wylie / @biancawylie: “The local councilors, including those who voted in favor of the data center, engaged with the company for almost two years prior to the vote — but without knowing that “Tulip,” the mysterious entity they'd been negotiating with, was Facebook.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
| Casey Newton / Platformer: |
More:
Tweets:
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: I'm glad that @CaseyNewton wrote about the legal risks of marrying E2EE with hard-to-trace money transmission and I was glad to talk to him. I think @signalapp is underestimating the legal attack surface they are opening up here. https://www.theverge.com/...
Patrick Gray / @riskybusiness: .@Metlstorm and I spoke about this on the show last year... nice thread from Alex https://twitter.com/...
Chris Vickery / @vickerysec: Alex Stamos might not draw a paycheck from Facebook anymore, but definitely still works for them. The Signal chat platform is a direct, and superior, competitor to Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Stamos seemingly desires to perpetuate the toxic sludge of Zuckerberg & pals. https://twitter.com/...
Alexei Bulazel / @0xalexei: Great thread on the legal risks of the new cryptocurrency features being built into @signalapp. Not to mention the 0click remote attack surface this introduces, for a critical app where even in-app-only smash-and-grab exploitation is a major concern. https://twitter.com/...
Kim Zetter / @kimzetter: Good take from @CaseyNewton on how Signal's new feature offering encrypted, anonymous (and therefore untraceable) payment transactions will likely provoke a new assault against end-to-end encryption from US law enforcement https://www.theverge.com/...
@blackamazon: Oh so all the crypto leaning dudes who have histories of not listening to marginalized people are about to sink themselves mad magically .. Alex Stamos still misses that because we are an out right refusal to not be twits But sure we'll go with legal reasoning again https://twitter.com/...
@mcclure111: A thread on how Signal attempting a cryptocurrency integration nobody wants (no, I mean really nobody; it's a coin the cryptocurrency community doesn't use) could wind up killing Signal https://twitter.com/...
Nicholas Weaver / @ncweaver: This is really important. Combined with Signal deliberately playing games on prospective PR/TT orders the legal liability gets huge. And for a payment system that can only work for crooks due to volatility + irreversibility. Or shillling Moxie's bags of shitcoins. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: This is a common misunderstanding of CSAM prevention obligations under 2258A. ESPs must report CSAM if they find it, *but they do not have to look*. Organizations moving around money have affirmative responsibilities under current law as well as licensing requirements.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Some are interpreting my thread to be about the effectiveness of the moral argument, but that's it. There are no existing legal obligations to prevent most types of abuse on messengers, but there are many affirmative obligations for money transmitters. https://twitter.com/...
Eerke Boiten / @eerkeboiten: Interesting read but not sure that “could be used to launder money” is as effective in making E2E and anonymity impopular as “think of the children”. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: But as I discussed with Casey, I think the real risk in the US comes from state and local LE, who are often the most effective anti-encryption advocates. Below is a passive-aggressive thank you from Cy Vance, the previous Manhattan DA who was a key coordinator of anti-E2EE. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Tech-libertarian types have always underestimated the power of governments, and opening up this kind of avenue of attack seems foolhardy. Regulators and prosecutors can be slow to adapt, but as the saying goes “the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Until this moment, local DAs and state AGs didn't have a lot of levers to pull if they wanted to attack an E2EE provider, but the addition of money transmittal could change that. NY is especially powerful in this area: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/...
Thijs Niks / @thijsniks: I can't say much about a competitor, but as someone with lots of international payments experience and previously at a company which liked to — uhh — challenge regulators: The one government agency you don't want to mess with is the financial one 💀 https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Earlier Picks
| Mike Masnick / Techdirt: |
Tweets:
Christine Haight Farley / @prof_farley: File this story under weaponizing copyright. https://www.techdirt.com/...
Mike Masnick / @mmasnick: In the meantime, though, you can read the story. I'm assuming for all the talk of reforming the DMCA, making sure subpoenas can't be abused this way isn't one of the options. https://www.techdirt.com/...
Mike Masnick / @mmasnick: I think the court is wrong about its fair use analysis and didn't properly weigh the importance of the right to anonymously criticize billionaires. But, once again, copyright law seems to have a weird exemption from the 1st Amendment, which SHOULD be seen as a problem.
| Bloomberg: |
Tweets: @maljefairi, @stevemoser, @stevemoser, @abebrown716, and @markgurman
More:
Nathaniel Mott / PCMag: PayPal Is ‘Exploring’ Launching Its Own Stablecoin
Mariella Moon / Engadget: PayPal confirms it's exploring the launch of its own stablecoin
Muhaimin Olowoporoku / Cryptopolitan: PayPal executive reveals firm is working to develop stablecoin
Michael McSweeney / The Block: PayPal confirms that it is ‘exploring’ a stablecoin
Felix Mollen / CryptoPotato: PayPal is Working On its Own Cryptocurrency: PayPal Coin
Tweets:
Steve Moser / @stevemoser: Also found new references to Neo in the PayPal iOS app. $neo #neo https://twitter.com/...
Steve Moser / @stevemoser: PayPal is working on a stable coin called ‘PayPal Coin’. Found the logo in their iOS app. #USDC #UST #tether #USDT #PayPalCoin https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Abe Brown / @abebrown716: Yields from DeFi savings accounts backed by stable coins are around 8% to 12% last time I checked. Seems like PayPal could launch one, offer half that (maybe less) and still win over a lot of normies (me included) who have hesitated so far. $PYPL https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Mark Gurman / @markgurman: Crypto News: PayPal is exploring the launch of its own stablecoin, the company told me and @jennysurane after @stevemoser found evidence of the work in PayPal's own iPhone app. “PayPal Coin” would be tied to the U.S. dollar. Story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
| Patrick McGee / Financial Times: |
Tweets:
@venz: “Steve Jobs is irreplaceable. They will not be nearly so successful.” Few predictions have ever been so wrong. Apple's market value has grown by more than $700m a day (🤯 red.) from when Cook took over in 2011 to this week when it struck $3tn. https://www.ft.com/...
Sam Joiner / @samjoiner: “Cook's triumph has been so unparalleled the numbers don't speak for themselves so much as they scream: Apple's market value has grown by more than $700m a day from when Cook took over in 2011”. Great piece on Apple's underestimated CEO by @PatrickMcGee_ https://www.ft.com/...
@hashim_warren: An iPhone never, ever being out of stock is a remarkable feat. https://www.ft.com/...
Subrahmanyam Kvj / @sub8u: Really good read on all the ways that Tim Cook managed to beat the burden of expectations post Jobs' demise and how he has delivered. https://www.ft.com/...
Ian Cowie / @iancowie: Spare a thought for cynics who called the top - all the way up - as #Apple's #stockmarket value soared by an average of more than $700m a day from when Tim Cook took over in August 2011 to this week when it touched $3 trillion! Full disclosure: long AAPL https://giftarticle.ft.com/...
Adam Townsend / @adamscrabble: Different. Jobs: Innovator, did something far smarter than wrap good technology in snazzy design, he wrapped good technology in a great biz model Cook: 2014 did 7/1 stock split, became a ‘bank’, recapitalized shifted focus to service contracts and phone co residuals etc https://twitter.com/...
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: “Steve Jobs looms so large in the cultural imagination that there is a lingering sense Tim Cook needs to oversee something truly major — a rival to @Tesla, an unmatched pair of AR glasses — to truly cement his legacy.” Apple leadership still v Jobsy... https://giftarticle.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: Another way to put this is that every Friday afternoon when Tim Cook starts the weekend, Apple's valuation has gone up by $5 billion in the previous five working days. On average, for 10.3 years. https://twitter.com/...
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: Some readers are demanding an edit to my claim that Apple's market value has grown $700m a day in Tim Cook's 10.3 years as CEO. They are right to be stunned. This statistic is crazy. It's also true. https://twitter.com/...
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: But Cook said Jobs had “a sparkle in his eye that I had never seen in a CEO before.” He shocked both his friends - “they thought I was nuts” - and himself by taking the offer. He listened to a voice in his head, Cook recounted, saying “Go West, young man, Go West.” 6/7
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: What compelled Cook to leave wasn't at all practical. “Conventional wisdom,” he told David Rubenstein," is 'you're working for the top personal computer maker in the world. Why would you ever leave?'" 5/7
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: By Cook's own account, he had little interest in leaving Texas for Cupertino. Only half a year earlier he had joined Compaq, then the world's biggest PC maker. Meeting with Jobs was simply an “opportunity to talk to the guy that started the whole industry,” Cook said. 4/7
Tripp Mickle / @trippmickle: Enjoyed speaking with @PatrickMcGee_ about Tim Cook, Apple's $3 Trillion Man, ahead of the May 3 release of “After Steve.” More details and preorder info on the book coming soon. https://www.ft.com/...
Tom Wilson / @thomas_m_wilson: This is a great read from @PatrickMcGee_ Apple at $3tn: the enigma of Tim Cook via @FT https://www.ft.com/...
Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_: 🚨How's this for a stunning stat?🚨 Sincen @tim_cook took over as CEO @Apple market value has risen $705m PER DAY. Part of my just-published profile of the $3tn man thx @trippmickle @margaretomara @lkahney @BainAlerts @RonAdner @rwang0 @dansalright https://giftarticle.ft.com/...
| Mitchell Clark / The Verge: |
Tweets: @carissaveliz, @marshacollier, @wrede, @kingthor, and @hypervisible
More:
Charlotte Edwards / New York Post: Facebook reveals how it REALLY collects and uses your data with new Privacy Center
Fiza Ali / Neowin: Meta's new resource, Privacy Center, to offer an insight into its approach to privacy
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Meta is testing a new meta privacy control center across apps
Tweets:
@carissaveliz: #Facebook being Facebook, again: putting the responsibility on users. As long as they don't change their business model, our #privacy will not be safe. https://www.theverge.com/...
Marsha Collier / @marshacollier: Facebook Is Giving You Homework To Learn About Its Privacy Settings The new Privacy Center includes guides and controls #privacy #techradio https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@wrede: @MetaNewsroom How many “privacy centers” have you launched in the past ten years? Something like 7? Is this the one that fixes everything?
Thorin_klosow.Ski / @kingthor: part of the how many times can we redo this challenge
| Ben Horowitz / Andreessen Horowitz: |
Tweets:
@a16z: We're excited to announce that a16z has raised a fresh $9 billion to invest via our Venture, Growth, and Bio Funds. Thank you to our Limited Partners and many wonderful entrepreneurs who have made this possible. @bhorowitz has more on our website: https://a16z.com/...
Subrahmanyam Kvj / @sub8u: There are somethings in life that come free. For eg, blocking people on Twitter.😉 For everything else, there's big monies from LPs. Congratulations and good luck @pmarca, @bhorowitz, @a16z 👏 https://twitter.com/...
Hussein Kanji / @hkanji: An insane amount of money. Net 4x-ing this is going to make some people very, very wealthy https://twitter.com/...
Sriram Krishnan / @sriramk: Really thrilled to be partnering with the next generation of amazing founders and companies!