Dear blockchain startups: do not promise decentralized Internet, you don't have to scale to the size of Facebook, just think small and build viable applications
sometimes for a very long time — before you get any traction that the wider world notices at all.” http://techcrunch.com/... Jennifer / @jennalee : I'd love just one of these start ups to say in 25 words or less what blockchain is. Convinced peoole just like saying & and writing the word. http://twitter.com/... Dean Bubley / @disruptivedean : @Techmeme @rezendi I think it's more that they *can't* scale to Facebook level. Unless someone can work out how build decentralised 30MW datacentres & suboceanic fibre, at least... David Lee / @davidlee : Also, this is a chance to build a different type of tech ecosystem from ground up at same stage as Shockley, Fairchild when it started Silicon Valley: inclusive of minorities, women, new geographies, diverse perspectives http://twitter.com/... David Swan / @swan_legend : “Your goal right now is to create a viable alternative for those who reject existing centralized services, whether they be many or few.” http://twitter.com/... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : “Pick a field of human endeavour, there's probably some white paper outlining a token-based decentralized wholesale replacement for the way things are done now. Dear blockchain people: stop it.” ~ @rezendi http://techcrunch.com/... Christopher Mims / @mims : “Blockchains are the new Linux, not the new internet” (agreed, more wisdom from @rezendi) http://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This advice lands mid-arc: Backchannel had already sketched how Bitcoin's blockchain could power an alternate internet, and by early 2018 the funding environment was being compared to a 1999-style bubble that would crash but still leave behind its own Googles and Facebooks. Weeks after this piece ran, Kai Stinchcombe sharpened the attack by arguing blockchain's core no-trusted-parties promise is largely irrelevant because systems built on trust and institutions work better.
First-order effects
- Blockchain startups pitching decentralized-internet replacements face pressure to reposition around narrow, viable applications rather than compete head-on with Facebook's infrastructure scale.
- Dean Bubley's objection in the discussion — that startups simply cannot build decentralized equivalents of 30MW datacenters and suboceanic fiber — reframes the pitch problem from ambition to physical feasibility.
Second-order effects
- Investors who bought the decentralized-internet narrative face a valuation reset as the sector's benchmark shifts from network-replacement scale to ordinary product traction, echoing the bubble dynamics already flagged in coverage.
- Incumbent platforms like Facebook are effectively let off the hook: if challengers concede they need not match centralized scale, the competitive threat to ad-funded social platforms recedes.
Third-order effects
- If the 'think small' counsel holds, blockchain consolidates into niche utility applications while the grand protocol-rebuilding ambitions migrate to critiques like Stinchcombe's trust argument and later Web3 skepticism about ideology-driven pivots.
- The pattern points toward a legitimacy test for the whole category: projects judged on working applications rather than decentralization rhetoric, narrowing the gap between crypto's promises and what institutions actually adopt.
The trend: Blockchain is moving from grand decentralized-infrastructure promises toward small viable applications, with skeptics of both its trust model and its funding mania defining the terms of evaluation.