Onchain is the future of social and here's why nobody should care

Transcript

Uh, hi. Testing. Um, so hi, my name is Justin. Um, I'm I guess they put me in the marketing track when I listened to the three few of the other talks earlier today in this room, but um I guess I'm kind of marketing, but we uh we can uh talk about it. Do you mind I'm talking about social, so I'm going to post this on my socials. So if you if Is anyone okay if Is everyone okay if I take like a selfie? All right.

Thanks. Yeah, so um for my talk, I'm here to just share some of my thoughts on social and how um on chain to me is a natural evolution of social. Um I think even like when I met with the the guys who are volunteering to organize this, they're like, "Wow, this is a hard topic." Um because I think the the notion of decentralized social is very uh if you think the crypto is in a bear situation right now, I think um decentralized social as a venture kind of uh subject is very much bearish at the moment. I think um with the transition of uh Lens to another team and similar to Farcaster um

with the transition of Farcaster to another team, um there is a lot of sentiment that decentralized social doesn't work, but um yeah, I think that's kind of some of the things I want to share my thoughts on. Um so and really when you think about decentralized social in itself, that's the part for me where no one should really know or care about decentralized social. The internet is being social anyways inherently. So, like um the fact that you're trying to sell users on decentralized social, I think is kind of a fool's errand anyways.

So, um a little bit about myself uh really quick before um diving into more of my thoughts. Um I've been online since 1995. I think one of my first memories of the internet uh was using Yahoo to learn um Princess Diana died in a car crash in 1996, I think um around. Um I used uh eBay and PayPal um to buy uh video games um way back in What did I I think my first purchase was in 2000. Um CD-ROMs still at the time. So, uh you can I I guess I'm just trying to say that I've been interacting online for a very long time. I've been pi- buying stuff.

I've been selling stuff online for a very long time. Um I worked at an e-commerce company. I was an early employee uh at an e-commerce company in Asia that we uh that exited in 2016. Um this was way before um Stripe was like a household name. Um we there was Shopify was less known at the time. We built a lot of these things from scratch. Um payments in particular was a huge pain in the ass because uh um where I was in Asia, card payments wasn't very like traditional wasn't typical yet at the time. Um and so, yeah. I mean, in if if you think about those kind of things, like time moves very quickly. And uh today I'm working on a crypto startup

that does social reputation, which is why I'm very much interested in social. Um and uh yeah. This is my fifth ECC uh and it's my fourth time speaking, but it's my first time coming here for it in Cannes. Uh so I'm very excited. Um so yeah, in my opinion I was sharing earlier, social is pretty much the internet is inherently social. I think for a lot of like crypto companies, web3 companies, um they like to kind of think that coordination is missing, that collaboration is missing, um that that tools for alignment are are not working. But in fact, like from the very beginning, like if you just look at IRC chats, if you

look at forums, like people were this is this has been the DNA of the internet for for as long as I remember. I'm not going to pretend like I knew internet um in like the '80s or something, but in the '90s internet, like this is what we were already doing. Um I if any of you guys remember like um Battle.net was Battle.net was maybe people remember QuakeNet. Um that's built on IRC. Uh Bitcoin Talk, obviously, is a huge kind of like coordination mechanism kind of thing. Um same with like the For me, the longest I used to be a runner. Um the longest online ID I have today um is a is an online running forum that

I've been a part of since 1999. And it's still I still have that ID today. So more and more, I think your accounts are becoming very important um online. It doesn't have to be like a It doesn't have to be a crypto thing. Um as we move more towards like an agentic web, I think we're seeing that social is kind of like the OG like protocol of of the internet. Um Oh, this was supposed to be a GIF. I guess it didn't transfer.

These are like the terms of service for Meta. I think it took me like a minute to scroll the entire thing. Um I mean, social in the time in the last two decades has like exploded, right? Everyone in crypto always likes to complain about web two social where um it's like read, write, and we don't own any of that. Um and it's true. I think um it's really kind of crazy to me that Meta earns like 200 Excuse me. Great try.

Yeah. Uh Meta earns like per user $270 uh a year on selling our data. Um which to me like uh like selling data isn't necessarily like a bad thing, but if we have no control over that, if we have no management over that, if we have no um if we have no say over that, that kind of configuration and and um it it it's really uh um uh I think it kind of goes to show that more and more users today are very aware that um the internet is I mean this phase of the internet is kind of uh declining. Um we're no longer we're um

we're no longer um in control of how we present ourselves. And I think particularly um in the age of the agentic web, that becomes more and more clear as we need to be we need to be indexed, we need to be discovered. And if uh the companies that are controlling that um are not able to uh give us more configuration on that, um we won't be discovered. We will and especially with payments, I think right now in crypto like the hottest thing is like agentic payments. That's how we're going to get paid. And uh there needs to be a way that we can be discovered in order to get paid.

Um so like I was saying earlier, I think the approaches we have taken so far um just framing things as decentralized social is not sexy. Like it just does not sell. I think the notion of it in general people are very attracted to cuz then it goes to what I was just talking about. It It kind of gives you the notion that oh, I do control my data. I do this platform is mine or my content on this platform is something that um that I control. It's something that I can sell or not sell. But honestly, if no one's using those platforms, what's the point, right? Like I think that that's always been kind of like

the criticism of Farcaster, the critic like 37 accounts or something, 37 users. Same with Lens. I think they try to claim like a few million accounts, but how many of them are actually active? How many of them are not bots? How many of them are not coordinated kind of efforts to just um airdrop farm. Um and so like really this does nothing to change like the landscape of like civil attacks or anything. It doesn't really um change the game for social because no one's actually social on it. Um I think one of my primary uh criticisms of Farcaster, for example, is a lot of the content is about Farcaster like there's people talking about

Farcaster on Farcaster. Um and to me like that is not uh that's not social, right? That's just like navel gazing. I mean it it is social in a way, but um like social is people with actual interests, like their niche interests, like cozy corners. This is a This is the kind of um communities that internet was built upon. But um right now for a lot of like the web3 based socials, it really is just um like uh what do you what do you call it? Like not yield farming, but uh potential airdrop farming. A lot of it is just trying to gain control of the network early at at early stages. And so I think one of the kind of issues, one of the challenges we have

with decentralized social is um we are trying to sell it to users as decentralized social and I think the majority of users I mean at at a conference like ECC of course like people care about sovereignty keep people care about decentralization people care about you know not having um walled gardens as uh their services but in fact uh your average user doesn't care. Um I mean the when we scroll through you know um Twitter when we scroll through Instagram when we scroll through TikTok um most people either want to be informed or entertained um and uh you you know you know their sovereignty is kind of like an afterthought.

Um but really I mean and and I think that's my point no one really cares how the platforms are are built. Um I do think more and more that people are aware that at the least that they want a little bit more control. We are seeing I I think have people seen like when your parents post on Facebook like uh there was a time when I think it was like a paragraph where people were sharing like um Mark Zuckerberg does not own my data like I like I by virtue of posting this like you cannot like use uh you cannot sell my data or whatever um uh the those kind of virality things um are built for attention. Those are like more

attention economy oriented things but um in general no one people want utility people want convenience they don't want to really care about like data portability and things like that but at the same time like we've seen these uh sorts of solutions work historically uh on the internet um like uh Napster uh is a a great example of like P2P software that's extremely well I don't know if people are young enough to remember or old enough to remember Napster here. Um it's a great example of how like really janky P2P tech was adopted by people because they wanted the value it provided. Um similar to

iterations on um P2P file sharing after with um LimeWire, Kazaa, uh things like that. And we you know modern home computing was not so convenient 20 years ago. You had to down you had to install stuff locally. You had to learn how to run those things um run those applications um uh configure uh your settings to um to access this kind of software. And um Excuse me. Yeah, I mean so I I don't I don't really think it's a viable excuse to say, "Oh, um everything needs to be handed to a user." We just need to give them the tools um with

the right value proposition. And uh to to say that decentralized social is dead in in my opinion is kind of um a a false flag kind of um it is more important than ever, but at the same time it can't be packaged as like a decentralized uh social solution. Um similarly I um I don't know like uh are people using Signal now? How many people in this room use Signal? Yeah, Signal Signal is like but there's like three of you in this room of I don't know like 20 uh 30 people like more and more we're making progress. Um I think Obsidian is like catching um

catching kind of uh more and more users these days, but at the same time like it's it's a slow burn. Um and uh I think that's a uh it's really a result of people not caring about the user experience um the way they should. Like the user experience shouldn't be built around Oh, my value prop is decentralized social. The user experience should be built around the value you're you're actually trying to provide to your users. In the case which in the case of the internet which in case of social which in the case of being on chain is uh social connectivity.

And I like I said, I think it is happening. I think people are more and more increasingly aware that they don't want big tech to completely wall their gardens. Big tech on the other hand in my opinion like the phrase of big tech I don't think big tech is inherently evil per se. Like I don't think it's a bad thing that services like Facebook um uh Snapchat whatever exist. But at the same time um big tech also realizes like it's a huge risk. It's it's extreme exposure for their user base more and more as attacks cyber attacks are more common today. Like as we live our lives more and more digitally it's

it's just natural that um these sort of resources will be will be attacked. So I do think interoperability is happening which is the underlying idea of decentralized social. I think more than half the the top apps and websites today use something like passkeys through Apple or Google. WhatsApp is now powered by signal as well. That's like 200 billion users that kind of have a little bit more control over their accounts and their data. And yeah, even more and more like decentralized tech interoperable tech is becoming fashionable. I think is anyone

using Beeper? To consolidate their messaging and everything. I think Automattic, the guys behind WordPress, which is also an extremely decentralized protocol, um just I think recently acquired text.com and rebranded it as Beeper. I mean, it's as as our digital footprints grow, um which is again social, um it's it's increasingly clear that we need a way to be interoperable, but at the same time uh mindful of users' data.

So, um I think why this is becoming more and more clear as for me as a thesis is um in the agentic on the agentic web, it's just going to be infinite bots. I If you're active on any kind of social media, um if you've ever had like your own content like slightly go viral or if you've ever had if you've ever seen someone else's content go viral and go through the replies, I think more and more like the vast majority of this content is through a botnet or like coordinated manipulation efforts. Like, that doesn't necessarily have to be a nefarious thing. It doesn't mean like someone's trying to change your opinion on the US elections or

something. It's like um it could just be I don't know, a contest for 1-year supply of McDonald's or something. Like like there are things to gain on the internet and there always like coordinated efforts to game any sort of like value that's being shared on the internet. And I think that's just going to skyrocket as we are seeing more and more kind of agentic personalities exist. Even us as accounts, we're going to start having agents that do um tasks for us online.

Like that sounds like I'm saying there's like a robotic butler or something, but it's it's less about having like a butler and more about being indexed and discovered because more and more like our digital selves is how we'll build our livelihoods. And um if you're not found, you won't be able to uh you won't be able to participate. Um and so I'd like to I I always like closing um with this kind of slide. Um for me, this is where we are right now. This is like a um this is basically the history of the browser, the web browser.

Um this was when Chrome was released. I'm I'm sure most people here use Chrome or some kind of Chromium browser. This was uh Netscape Navigator, the first circle. And the second circle is Internet Explorer. This is like several decades. Um I don't want to say something like you know, like a cliché like, "Oh, we're so early." It's not really about saying that we're early. It's just this is how much iteration happens just on a web browser to make it like even remotely accessible today for how we socialize online.

Um so this is the context. This is why I think decentralized social is still very much relevant um especially on chain. Um and uh yeah, uh thanks for coming to my talk. Now we have uh 2 minutes for questions. There There Oh, yeah. These are my socials if you do want to think. Hey uh Martin, thanks for the um Justin, thanks for the talk.

Um I was kind of half anticipating that you were you were demonstrating a problem and then you would at the end, you know, show your solution to this problem. But I'm I'm really curious to hear that if if you have that. Um I I try not to like especially with these community conferences, I know a lot of people like go to talks to just shill their products and stuff. So, um I try not to shill my product. Um I I I do think for me, um one of the interesting things right now happening in decentralized social is at proto at protocol on Blue Sky.

Um I do think the problem is interoperability for as we have more presence online. Um what is it? Uh O off like Gmail for example Google um kind of dominated that for the last decade, but I think that's becoming more like we we don't want to rely completely on one provider. Um so to me like being able to do O off being able to like have a digital ID is increasingly to me I see that as a problem. Like you want that's that's not I guess the problem is you need to be identified.

O off was one solution. I do think at proto what the the kind of way at proto is set up is one of the better ways um that it's being done today. Um but I do think so on chain is a lot doing it on chain is is is a much superior and more sovereign solution. Um and so yeah anything kind of dealing with decentralized ID on chain to me is extremely worth looking at today even though everyone's into payments and stable coins and stuff like that at the moment.

I don't know if that answers your I I and to add on that just because agentic payments and things are becoming um such a big trend right now. Um I was commenting earlier. The next kind of problem that arises there is who like how do you know who your agents are paying? How do you know you're paying the right person? Um so that's why I think socials and social graphs and kind of bringing them on chain is going to be increasingly more important in the next few years. Okay, so thank you.

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