I wrote a book: Read Write Own
I wrote a book: Read Write Own I believe blockchains and the software movement around them – typically called crypto or web3 – provide the only plausible path to sustaining ...
cdixon
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
Latest posts
NFTs and A Thousand True Fans
In his classic 2008 essay “1000 True Fans,” Kevin Kelly predicted that the internet would transform the economics of creative activities: To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. ...
Doing old things better vs doing brand new things
New technologies enable activities that fall into one of two categories: 1) doing things you could already do but can now do better because they are faster, cheaper, easier, higher ...
Computers that can make commitments
Blockchains are computers that can make commitments. Traditional computers are ultimately controlled by people, either directly in the case of personal computers or indirectly through organizations. Blockchains invert this power ...
Inside-out vs. outside-in: the adoption of new technologies
There are broadly two adoption paths for new computing technologies: inside-out and outside-in. Inside-out technologies are pioneered by established institutions and later proliferate outward to the mainstream. Apple (followed by ...
Strong and weak technologies
During a media tour in 2007 in which Steve Jobs showed the device to reporters, there was one instance in which a journalist criticized the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard. “It doesn’t ...
Who will control the software that powers the Internet?
Originally published by Wired. As the internet has evolved over its 35-year lifespan, control over its most important services has gradually shifted from open source protocols maintained by non-profit communities ...
Why decentralization matters
The first two eras of the internet During the first era of the internet — from the 1980s through the early 2000s — internet services were built on open protocols ...
Tokens: A Breakthrough in Open Network Design
It is a wonderful accident of history that the internet and web were created as open platforms that anyone — users, developers, organizations — could access equally. Among other things, ...
How Aristotle Created the Computer
The philosophers he influenced set the stage for the technological revolution that remade our world. Originally published by The Atlantic. The history of computers is often told as a history ...
Gadgets and Computers
From Benedict Evans’ Cars as Feature Phones: This is a common theme in many classes of device: you start with a product that has a few electronic functions added, and ...
As [Edwin] Land ultimately recognized, the adoption of his [polarized headlight] system was fatally…
As [Edwin] Land ultimately recognized, the adoption of his [polarized headlight] system was fatally hampered by the fact that there was no competitive advantage for any car company in using ...
Eleven Reasons To Be Excited About The Future of Technology
“The strongest force propelling human progress has been the swift advance and wide diffusion of technology.” — The Economist In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less ...
“Steve Jobs supposedly said, returning to Apple, that his plan was to stay alive and grab onto the…
“Steve Jobs supposedly said, returning to Apple, that his plan was to stay alive and grab onto the next big thing — to listen for the footsteps. He tried video, ...
“Ether is a necessary element — a fuel — for operating the distributed application platform…
“Ether is a necessary element — a fuel — for operating the distributed application platform Ethereum. It is a form of payment made by the clients of the platform to ...
“If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they…
“If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said a decentralized network of information nodes that are ...
“The typical path of how people respond to life-changing inventions
I’ve never heard of it. I’ve heard of it but don’t understand it. I understand it, but I don’t see how it’s useful. I see how it could be fun ...
Comma.ai
I wrote a blog post last month highlighting some of the exciting trends in the computing industry. One trend I discussed is the rapid progress in a branch of artificial ...
The Internet Economy
We are living in an era of bundling. The big five consumer tech companies — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft — have moved far beyond their original product lines ...
What’s Next in Computing?
The computing industry progresses in two mostly independent cycles: financial and product cycles. There has been a lot of handwringing lately about where we are in the financial cycle. Financial ...