Before Bitcoin Pt.2—80s “The Origins of Decentralisation”

During the first era of the internet — from the 1980s through the early 2000s — internet services were built on open protocols that were controlled by the internet community.


During the second era of the internet, from the mid 2000s to the present, for-profit tech companies — most notably Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA)

idealistic: no hierarchy, no special founders group, no pre-mine, just release the client, make it an open community project, be noble like Satoshi, and not guarantee anyone “equity” in the form of coins.

DigiCash, more than a simple electronic-payments solution, was cutting-edge in its cryptographic features. It protected user privacy; it removed payment-processing intermediaries and the costs that went with them; it even promised to upend power structures and end corruption.