Twitter founder Jack Dorsey regrets playing a role in centralising the internet

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has admitted he regrets his involvement in creating a centralised internet.

“The days of usenet, irc, the web…even email (w PGP)…were amazing,” he said in a tweet on Sunday.

“Centralizing discovery and identity into corporations really damaged the internet. I realize I’m partially to blame, and regret it.”

As Affirm CEO and co-founder Max Levchin points out in replying to Dorsey’s tweet, the internet “changed from arthouse to blockbuster because it needed to gain an audience and make money”.

Dorsey continued saying that “perhaps greater emphasis on protocol first and then interface would have helped”.

“I agree there was less technology options around making money tho. It led to advertising dominating,” he said.

However, this is not the first time Dorsey has lamented over the current state of the internet. At the end of last year, he dropped a single tweet that said: “You don’t own ‘web3.’ The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.”

Back in 2019, Dorsey also announced changes to Twitter’s fundamental technology, BlueSky, saying it was going to be “an open and decentralized standard for social media.”