PART 1: THE INTERNET IS HAVING A KODAK MOMENT

Also, much like a small homestead on a hundred acres, websites were closed ecosystems and isolated. There were no social networks or marketplace platforms to tap as a firehose channel for building an audience, and there was no real mechanism for ‘going viral’.

You had to grow your traffic the old fashioned way – by asking your digital neighbors for ... See more

Fast forward to today, and it’s become increasingly clear that the crypto ecosystem – specifically, its blockchain infrastructure – will fundamentally change the way we use, build and benefit from the internet.

And in general, the average user is now starting to actually care about things like privacy, data custody, and data ownership, which poses a real political threat to Big Tech.

But some cracks are starting to form, and people are beginning to wake up. Facebook and its founder are increasingly viewed with negative sentiment. Google is increasingly under the microscope for anti-trust & monopolistic behavior.

Google & Facebook have similarly perfected this balance between harvesting data, content & attention from us in exchange for a little convenience, distribution & dopamine to keep us plugged in.

The fact that you can count on one hand the number of CEO’s who effectively control 95% of the internet experience as we know it is pretty astounding.

Amazon owns the shopper. From its start here status for buying anything online to its world-class fulfillment & logistics infrastructure, the Amazon ecommerce experience is unmatched – nothing else even comes close.

Apple owns the affluent. For the most part, the affluent demographic strongly correlates to using Macs, iPhones, Apple Watches & AirPods. And Apple takes 30% of the topline revenues from any business that wants to build things that work on its devices.

Google owns all the starting points. Just flipped open the laptop? Open Chrome. Need to find something? Google Search. Time to check your email? Gmail. Using a non-Apple smartphone? Android. Need to go somewhere? Google Maps / Waze. Looking for a video? Youtube. Need to work on something? Google Docs/Drive. And the list goes on.