One major challenge is that the blockchain has, at present, approximately zero uses for the typical consumer. Theoretical uses abound, but no ordinary person is choosing a blockchain-based technology over its traditional counterpart. More than a decade after blockchains first caught tech geeks’ eye, not a single smartphone app that you use with friends or co-workers relies on that technology. By contrast, when the web was the same age that bitcoin is today, it had half a billion users around the world.

- What if the browser was local-first? - What if websites showed up as files and folders on my computer? - What if the browser saved a local copy of everything I bookmark? - What if I had my own personal wayback machine? - What if I had a little local Google that could search the full text of everything I’ve ever saved? - What if I could open website files, edit, and remix them? Add links. Mark them up with highlights Write margin notes. - What if the whole web was built around copying/remixing/sharing?

The internet is one of the most powerful technologies the world has ever known, but why that power so often results in dehumanizing and hurting people is not as mysterious as we sometimes assume. It is the direct result of the choices people with control over internet platforms make.

“I don’t know if I believe in the true self, to be honest,” he admits. “I think who you are is not something that is dictated by an unchanging static character core. I think who you are is what you fill yourself with. In that sense, I don’t think it’s a destination to get to. This is something that will always be changing, and it’s something that I’ll be exploring until I’m not here anymore.”