I want to believe in blockchain. A safe, agreed-upon record for tracking things has tremendous appeal. And it’s already in use in many places including tracking diamonds. It has tremendous potential for usage in real estate making transactions and title much simpler. Anyone who has ever had to track down the ownership of a property knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Chris Dixon says there’s even more blockchain can do. Dixon is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, so you can only imagine how many great and not-so-great ideas have passed across his desk. In his book Read Write Own, Dixon posits that we are facing a new age of the internet. The first stage, which most of us oldies remember well, mostly involved looking at things. The second stage, began with blogs and ends in the influencer/creator hell where we currently find ourselves. It’s a world in which giant corporations pay those who build on their platforms very little and the audiences they build belong to the platform not the person who grew it.

Dixon uses models from email and the web to show there’s another option. Large networks created on blockchain that are not owned by any one person. The ownership of specific elements remains with the creator unless transferred. Imagine if the person who created some silly yet widely popular meme could get paid every time it was used. Your content could be both viral and protected. Both people and companies chase virality, and yet whether or not it pays off can vary dramatically. In this world, the function of tokens is to incentivize good behavior. He likens blockchain networks to cities with shared community facilities and guidelines that protect the populace.

As Dixon sees it, blockchain has two main functions: computer and casino. The casino aspect makes the headlines, it’s bitcoin, FTX, dogecoin, NFTs, — an endless rabbit hole of speculation filled with diamond-handed devotees. The computer side is blockchain’s primary function, building long traceable functional frameworks. This can create social networks, payment systems, and much more.

Where I get stuck is that I think that AI might have changed the game. Dixon is far smarter than I am and he talks a bit about ways that people might be able to be paid for all the content that we are tossing into the maw of large language models, mostly for the benefit of large corporations. On some level, I’m not sure if AI will render the individual creator obsolete. I really want to be wrong about that.

This was a hugely thought-provoking read for me. It is being seen as a “crypto” book but it’s far more than that

In his thought-provoking book "Read Write Own," Chris Dixon presents a compelling vision of how blockchain technology could reshape the internet and, by extension, society as a whole. Drawing on his extensive experience in the tech industry, Dixon traces the evolution of the internet through three distinct eras: the "read" era, which democratized access to information; the "read-write" era, dominated by corporate networks that democratized publishing; and the emerging "read-write-own" era, characterized by the rise of blockchain networks.

Dixon argues that blockchain technology combines the best aspects of protocol networks and corporate networks while addressing their shortcomings. He contends that blockchains can create open, decentralized, and self-sustaining networks that enshrine the rights and incentives of creators, contributors, and participants. By contrast, he likens corporate networks to theme parks, where a central authority controls every aspect of the user experience and can change the rules at will.

One of the book's strengths is its accessibility. Dixon's clear and engaging writing style makes complex concepts easy to grasp, even for readers with little prior knowledge of blockchain technology. He employs vivid analogies, such as comparing blockchains to cities and corporate networks to theme parks, to illustrate his points.

However, the book lacks a more in-depth exploration of specific blockchain projects and their potential applications. Instead, Dixon focuses on the big-picture implications of blockchain technology for the future of the internet and society. While this approach provides valuable insights, it may leave some readers wanting more concrete examples.

Additionally, be aware of the author's financial interests in blockchain companies. Given Dixon's role as a partner at a prominent venture capital firm, greater transparency on this front would have strengthened the book's credibility.

Despite these limitations, "Read Write Own" offers a valuable perspective on the potential of blockchain technology to create a more equitable and decentralized internet. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the broader implications of this transformative technology and its potential to reshape our digital future.

Read Write Own by Chris Dixon is a book about how he sees the future of the Internet being shaped by blockchains. Dixon does a great job of simplifying and explaining what the previous two eras of the Internet were (Read, and Read Write), and he made it easier to understand what blockchains were, how they worked, the pros and cons of blockchains as well as crypto currencies. Overall, I feel like I learned a lot from this book and believe that people with little to no experience or knowledge of blockchains or how the Internet works, as well as experts in these fields, can learn from Read Write Own. I wanted to learn about the future of the Internet as I look to move in to the IT field, so I felt this was very informative and I am eager to see if the future will play out the way Dixon believes it can.

Chris Dixon is a famous crypto guy.
His thesis is that digital words were once only about reading.
The 2nd step was writing: creating content for social media.

We're now at the 3rd step: owning the content we create.

Web 3 can incentivize innovation, reduce taxes on creators, and let the contributors share in the decision making process and upside.

He introduced me to the word "skeuomorphic."
It's holdovers in product design.

Another is "one-boxing."
It's when Google reveals the answer (from your site) on the results page so that nobody clicks to your page, killing your traffic.

For those who know little about crypto and web 3, this is an invaluable book.

Experts may learn little though.

Chris Dixon provides a critical look at the aggregation of power of the large Internet companies, which have turned the formerly free network into a place comprised largely of toll-roads. "The Take" of App-Stores, e-commerce sites and media companies is getting increasingly bigger and erodes ownership of books, music and movies more than ever.

In his book he makes the case that technologies like Blockchain Ledgers and Tokenization have the potential to give us the freedoms back we lost over the past decades and liberates us from the shackles of the companies which are dominating the internet today. A fascinating read and a thought process any business leader can follow and should pay attention to.