We Can Fix The Web Without Regulation

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, laptop scientist, inventor of the net and an all-round good man, wrote some phrases in The Evening Standard earlier this week, arguing that polarization, conspiracy and psychological well being crises on-line stem from design flaws that have to be corrected — even when that requires regulation. 

The piece attracts straight from chapter 13, “Design Points,” of his just lately launched e-book “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web,” which I encourage everybody to learn.

I agree with Berners-Lee’s prognosis. However regulation shouldn’t be the treatment. The online’s decline shouldn’t be merely a design failure; additionally it is an financial one. Design decisions observe incentives, and people incentives have been distorted by fiat cash and the promoting mannequin it props up. Low-cost credit score from the fiat-fuelled enterprise capital system pushed Silicon Valley away from hacker-led engineering and towards surveillance-driven revenue extraction.

To repair the net, we want open supply protocols and open supply cash. 

The web could be fastened with out regulation. However we can not engineer an answer whereas ignoring the financial headwinds that form design. The financial system — quarterly shareholder primacy and fiat inflation — pressures firms to prioritize engagement, outrage and surveillance promoting. Bitcoin adjustments this equation. It removes inflationary strain, doubtlessly breaks the advert mannequin by enabling new types of monetization that align with person pursuits moderately than exploit them. Mixed with open protocols, Bitcoin is the enabler of a freer, extra moral net.

What Went Mistaken With World Large Net

Berners-Lee highlights two primary signs: polarization and psychological well being harm. He’s proper. 

1. Polarization and Collapse of Shared Actuality 

Berners-Lee says:
“Essentially the most egregious symptom is polarisation. Social media, as at the moment constructed, leads customers to take excessive political positions and demonise the opposing aspect. This makes constructive engagement tough, permits outlandish conspiracy theories to flourish, and promotes demagoguery over deliberation.”

Polarization is actual. However amplification cuts each methods. The identical algorithms that floor conspiracy theories additionally amplify truths that the mainstream media suppresses. In an age of censorship and propaganda, this amplification has generally been the one method fact surfaces. 

The deeper problem is that individuals not share the identical actuality. A breaking story fractures into irreconcilable narratives relying on whether or not it spreads by way of Twitter, TikTok, Bluesky or Reddit; whether or not filtered by means of left-leaning fact-checkers or right-leaning commentators; whether or not summarized by Grok or ChatGPT. Every tribe outsources “fact formation” to its personal authorities, who’re incentivized to ship emotionally handy details. LLMs may also generate artificial personalities to disrupt discourse at scale. Regulation won’t restore belief right here — as a result of the issue isn’t just what flows, however how belief is established within the first place.

That mentioned, algorithms are optimized for outrage as a result of outrage is worthwhile. Regulation won’t change this, because it’s as a lot an financial drawback as it’s a technical one.

As Neal Howe and William Strauss describe in “The Fourth Turning,” we’re in a disaster period: Consensus frays, energy realigns and outdated preparations give method. In apply, which means extra friction on-line — tribal feeds, narrative knife fights and rising coordination prices. In different phrases, we should always anticipate to see among the carnage we’re seeing as we speak, and we will do one thing about it. 

2. Psychological Well being and Addictive Algorithms 

Berners-Lee says:
“Many social media customers report struggling psychological well being points after extended utilization. {The catalogue} of ills associated to social media is alarming: anxiousness, melancholy, jealousy, inadequacy, emotions of isolation, physique picture points.”

I agree, social media is liberating and harmful in equal measure. Search queries for anxiousness rise in parallel with utilization, and {the catalogue} of harms is lengthy: melancholy, inadequacy, physique picture points, isolation. That is definitely one thing that wants fixing. 

Berners-Lee says:
“Social media firms are utilizing machine-learning methods to make customers hooked on their platforms. These methods are designed to be addictive, feeding individuals an increasing number of excessive content material, making them alternately offended and unhappy.”

This isn’t unintentional. Twenty-plus years in the past, Silicon Valley execs and engineers have been taught find out how to design addictive methods at BJ Fogg’s Persuasive Expertise Lab at Stanford (his e-book, for anybody , is known as “Persuasive Technology”), with some even attending retreats at his dwelling the place these concepts have been explored additional. The *Like* button, infinite scroll and purple notification badges all got here from his teachings and have been engineered to hijack dopamine pathways. 

Jack Dorsey, talking on the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2024, spoke concerning the harm attributable to the algorithms designed by these firms: 

“The actual debate needs to be about free will. We’re being programmed based mostly on what we are saying we’re excited about, and we’re informed by means of these discovery mechanisms what’s attention-grabbing — and as we have interaction and work together with this content material, the algorithm continues to construct an increasing number of of this bias.”

Dorsey has beforehand spoken about how Twitter began as a protocol imaginative and prescient earlier than enterprise capital steered it towards progress, management and advert monetization. Having seen the corruption of that imaginative and prescient, it’s no coincidence that Dorsey now backs open supply protocols like Nostr, Bitchat and beforehand Bluesky. His investments are a affirmation that platforms can’t be reformed from inside. Solely protocols, open by design, can defend free will from algorithmic seize.

Berners-Lee has advised that algorithms may very well be rebuilt to maximise pleasure moderately than outrage. It’s a noble imaginative and prescient, one I want have been lifelike — however beneath present incentives, it’s not. Analysis exhibits that high-arousal feelings, especially anger, spread faster than calm or constructive feelings.

Makes an attempt to pivot have confirmed pricey earlier than. As an example, when Fb adjusted its Information Feed in 2018 to cut back dangerous content material, users spent 50 million fewer hours per day on the site and publishers noticed visitors collapse. More moderen audits verify the identical sample: Platforms that downrank divisive content material see measurable drops in engagement and income. (You’ll find associated research here, here, here and here.)

So long as firms are sure by their fiduciary obligation to maximise shareholder worth, regulators can not pressure them to intentionally make much less cash as long as outrage stays extra worthwhile than pleasure.

Regulation of the Web

Berners-Lee has lengthy been one of many web’s strongest defenders. He fought for internet neutrality, encryption and decentralization. He warned of surveillance lengthy earlier than it was trendy. He has stood on the aspect of open participation and person empowerment.

So it comes as considerably of a shock when Berners-Lee concedes that regulation is perhaps essential. He even quotes bad-faith actor Yuval Noah Harari to assist this case: 

“If a social media algorithm recommends to individuals a hate-filled conspiracy principle, that is the fault not of the one who produced the conspiracy principle, it’s the fault of the individuals who designed and let free the algorithm.” 

Whereas I begrudgingly agree with Harari on this occasion, let’s not lose sight of who we’re coping with. He’s a World Economic Forum favourite, a constant advocate of technocratic options and somebody who has described bitcoin as a foreign money of mistrust. His worldview defaults to centralization, surveillance and state energy. His arguments are wearing motive however advance much less autonomy and extra management.

Berners-Lee admits: “Whereas I usually oppose the regulation of the net, on this occasion I agree.” I’m sorry, however regulation is a slippery slope that we should always do our utmost to keep away from.

It’s as a result of Berners-Lee has been such a defender of the web that his concession to regulation feels a little bit defeatist. Has the relentless rise of algorithmic seize, misinformation and addictive design worn him down? Maybe. However regulation shouldn’t be the reply.

One other phrase on regulation… When governments regulate, they entrench incumbents and weaponize “security” to justify censorship. They’re additionally hopelessly incompetent — the EU’s cookie law is an ideal instance: It protected no person, achieved nothing and left customers coping with annoying pop-ups.

True democracy on-line needs to be crowdsourced and constructed with open protocols — guidelines with out rulers.

The Financial Headwind of a Free and Flourishing Web

Now let’s get to the crux of the matter. The most important problem is fiat cash. Its full implementation in 1971 marked a fork within the highway: productiveness stored climbing, however wages stagnated in actual phrases. WTF Happened in 1971? exhibits the divergence clearly — inequality, debt, housing prices and social decay all accelerating after Nixon severed the ultimate tie to gold.

Earlier than 1971, costs and wages remained comparatively secure. For hundreds of years, beneath laborious cash, there was equilibrium. In the course of the short-lived classical gold commonplace, the Belle Époque delivered a golden age of invention and relative prosperity. Costs stayed secure, and by most accounts, life flourished. That stability vanished as soon as fiat cash grew to become the norm.

Since then, and at an accelerating tempo, individuals have needed to work more durable for much less. Corporations have been compelled to extract extra productiveness whereas changing into much less moral. Bear in mind Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto? That is doubtless the malevolent pressure that induced Sergey, Larry and Eric to lose their innocence.

Talking of Google, its advert mannequin killed conventional media’s enterprise mannequin, leaving it depending on state subsidies and company sponsorships. Governments now use media as PR machines, which is a big a part of the polarization drawback we’re witnessing on-line. 

The enterprise capital mannequin, fuelled by low cost fiat credit score, warped Silicon Valley incentives from hacker-led engineering to surveillance-led revenue extraction. Centralization and monopolization are hallmarks of simple credit score and the Cantillon impact. 

Jeff Sales space estimates expertise applies a natural deflationary force of ~5% per year, whereas Saifedean Ammous argues that actual inflation — not CPI, however financial growth — runs nearer to 15-16%. Governments offset deflation with cash printing; firms reply by extracting extra from customers in an ever-increasing race to the underside. 

The end result is seen in fairness markets: the Mediocre 493 corporations listed on the S&P 500 are structurally failing, and the S&P, powered by the Magnificent 7, principally mirrors the cash provide.

And layered on prime of fiat, fiduciary obligation and quarterly reporting locked firms right into a head-on battle with inflation. Fiduciary obligation, codified in Nineteenth-century U.S. legislation, merely required administrators to behave in shareholders’ greatest pursuits. However the SEC’s 1970 mandate for quarterly 10-Q reporting — mixed with Milton Friedman’s 1970 essay in the New York Times proclaiming that the only duty of enterprise is to extend income — hardened the tradition of “quarterly capitalism.” 

This convergence — fiat cash, shareholder primacy, quarterly reporting and venture-funded adtech — created the right storm. Corporations are structurally incentivized to gasoline outrage, dependancy, and mine person knowledge. Regulation can not change this as long as the underlying cash system is damaged. Till we modify course and return to sound cash, design fixes will all the time fail beneath financial strain. 

Tim Berners-Lee, Bitcoin is the Panacea!

Bitcoin is each a treatment for damaged cash and a basis for brand new enterprise fashions on-line. It isn’t an app or an organization — it’s a financial base layer that resets incentives on the root. 

I don’t know the place Berners-Lee stands on Bitcoin particularly. Publicly, he’s dismissed crypto as a speculative on line casino. On that, I agree. Bitcoin is totally different: no insiders, no enterprise fund, no basis, no mutable guidelines. If he sees that distinction, good; if not but, possibly quickly.

Fixing cash

Bitcoin combines one of the best properties of gold — sturdiness, shortage, uniformity, unforgeable costliness — with one of the best properties of fiat — divisibility, portability. The result’s unequivocally one of the best cash ever designed: It’s additionally borderless, censorship-resistant, decentralized, brazenly programmable, sure by thermodynamics and internet-native.

In distinction to Bitcoin, it’s changing into clearer with every passing 12 months that the fiat system is crumbling beneath our ft, as bitcoin monetizes in its shadow. Bitcoin affords a approach to diffuse the worldwide debt bubble moderately than let it implode, correcting the course of monetary history by putting world a refund on a sound footing.

The implications are monumental, if/when bitcoin turns into fiat’s successor. For the primary time in residing reminiscence, society would not must swim in opposition to the tide simply to remain nonetheless. With sound cash, the pure deflationary advantages of technological progress can accrue to all, not be siphoned away by these closest to the spigot.

Jeff Sales space, in “The Price of Tomorrow,” makes the purpose that expertise is inherently deflationary, i.e., it delivers extra for much less. However beneath fiat cash, this deflation is papered over with inflation, debt and progress targets. Bitcoin harmonizes cash with expertise. Its fastened provide means the good points of technological deflation accrue to everybody, moderately than being siphoned away. 

Fixing incentives on-line

“For those who think about the web to be the equal to a nation state, it would have a foreign money native to itself, and there may be not going to be anybody social gathering or establishment that makes this occur, and there’s not going to be anybody social gathering or establishment that may cease it from taking place.” – (Jack Dorsey, Quartz)

Now that we’ve an web native foreign money, the query is… what can it allow?

Effectively, initially, bitcoin can reshape incentives on-line. It may possibly do that by enabling micropayments, streaming sats and peer-to-peer monetization, that means customers can assist creators straight. Platforms can earn cash with out promoting their customers’ knowledge to advertisers. This might reduce the impact and even eliminate an ad-driven, knowledge mining mannequin that forces platforms to optimize for outrage.

It’s going to additionally upend the enterprise capital mannequin, as presently those that are closest to the cash spigot profit in better proportion. As Bitcoin has no central financial institution to create more cash, everybody has a comparatively equal footing, and thus funding ought to develop into extra decentralized, as soon as once more.

From there, totally new dynamics can emerge. Protocols and functions received’t be beholden to growth-at-all-costs fashions dictated by enterprise funds; they will scale organically, funded by the very customers who depend on them. Worth turns into the metric, not quarterly progress or advert impressions. Builders can ship merchandise that clear up actual issues, and be rewarded straight in sats. Communities can pool capital with out intermediaries, seeding initiatives from the underside up moderately than ready for approval from the highest down.

On this surroundings, the web can lastly align with its unique ethos — open, interoperable and user-driven — as a result of the financial layer itself is open, interoperable and user-driven. Bitcoin clears the bottom for that alignment. 

Bitcoin shouldn’t be restricted to fixing the net — it’s upstream of it. With out sound cash, design fixes will all the time be bent again towards exploitation. With sound cash, platforms can undertake fashions which might be moral by default. With internet-native cash, creators could be paid straight. Bitcoin is the fulcrum the place damaged incentives give approach to more healthy methods — on-line and off.

“The web, our biggest device of emancipation, has been remodeled into probably the most harmful facilitator of totalitarianism we’ve ever seen.” – Julian Assange

Fixing this doesn’t require authorities regulation. It requires realigning incentives — with open protocols and Sound Cash.

Open Supply Options

Berners-Lee factors to open supply instruments like Polis, Mastodon and Fora as promising experiments in more healthy on-line discourse. Constructing on these efforts, a brand new wave of protocols combines the identical open ethos with a local web cash, aligning incentives in ways in which advertising-driven fashions by no means might.

With Bitcoin because the financial base, protocols can handle the design layer. These methods are reside, early and want broader adoption and a killer utility — however they already present find out how to realign incentives with out regulation.

Mastodon demonstrates what’s doable with open supply federation and timelines constructed from individuals you select to observe, moderately than engagement-driven algorithms. And whereas its refusal to depend on promoting is a power, the absence of a local funds system is a limitation.

Enter Nostr

Launched in late 2019 by Fiatjaf, Nostr (“Notes and Different Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) is a straightforward protocol that decouples identification and content material from any single app. Keys determine customers; relays transmit signed occasions. A number of purchasers (Damus, Amethyst, Primal, Iris, Alby) learn and write to the identical social graph, delivering actual interoperability — the type of cross-client, cross-app portability Berners-Lee requires.

Customers choose relays and form their very own feeds, placing algorithmic alternative firmly of their palms. This echoes the thought Harvard professor Jonathan Zittrain proposed — and which Berners-Lee spotlights in his e-book — for fine-tuned controls to steer content material away from conspiracy rabbit holes. In contrast to that platform-driven imaginative and prescient, Nostr empowers customers straight, with its algorithmic flexibility restricted solely by the protocol’s younger age.

Whereas funds aren’t a part of the bottom design, Lightning “zaps” are actually widespread — native, instantaneous tipping and funds tied to posts and profiles. That pairing — open communication plus open cash — allows bottom-up coordination and speedy iteration with out gatekeepers. Deletion is advisory (purchasers/relays might honor it), so there’s sensible permanence and accountability throughout the community.

Learn extra: Nostr: censorship-resistant communication

Protocols, Infused with Bitcoin

Chaumian Mints

Cashu by Calle brings Chaumian eCash to Bitcoin — personal, bearer-style tokens that may run alongside Nostr or standalone. It allows quick, personal micro-flows; Calle additionally co-founded BitChat with Jack Dorsey, taking these concepts right into a user-facing chat context.

Fame Techniques

Group Notes proves cross-faction context can gradual misinformation. Add clear weighting, DIDs and Net-of-Belief primitives and also you get a sturdy, moveable status. Put sats as skin-in-the-game (bonds/slashing for dishonest indicators) and the mechanism strengthens with out central censors.

Spam Resistance

Spam isn’t new, and it isn’t purely on-line. Usenet has dealt with floods for many years as a decentralized, user-run community with no central regulator. Adam Again’s Hashcash confirmed the core precept: connect a small proof-of-work value and abuse drops. The identical economics apply now with bitcoin — sats-priced frictions by way of Lightning (or Ark Protocol) make bot farms and propaganda costly whereas protecting sincere participation low cost. 

Spam is principally a numbers sport: When it’s free, it scales; add value and also you restore the sign. Suppose refundable per-post/per-DM deposits, PoW stamps or charge limits priced in sats— good-faith interplay stays sustainable whereas mass manipulation turns into uneconomic.

In Conclusion

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is correct concerning the signs. Our opinions differ concerning the treatment. Regulation can not reverse centralization engineered by states and firms; it merely entrenches governments into the issue it partly created.

The drift didn’t begin with dangerous UX. It began with damaged cash (and all the issues therein) and the top of sound cash (1971), along with shareholder-primacy dogma, bent incentives towards short-term nominal good points and surveillance promoting. From there, outrage paid the payments, whereas integrity fell by the best way.

The treatment is Bitcoin returning the world to sound cash, which is able to allow open protocols to raised energy the net.

Screw the regulators.

Repair the cash, repair the world.