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The Biggest Challenges Create The Biggest Opportunities

Techdirt. 2024-12-31

As is the tradition on Techdirt, my final post of the year is about optimism and how I continue to be optimistic about innovation and online community, even in the midst of whatever other nonsense may be happening around the globe. This is now my 16th such post. The trend kicked off in 2008 when I had multiple conversations noting that I seemed weirdly optimistic about innovation, even as I was constantly writing angry screeds about stupid stuff that was going on.

As I told Ed Zitron during a podcast earlier this year, I’ve always been a fundamental believer in innovation making the world a better place for all, and whatever anger you see from me comes out of a frustration against those who seek to delay or limit the benefits of such useful innovation. However, as last year’s final message pointed out, this is not the same thing as saying “acceleration at all costs,” because if you build without taking into account the potential harms, your advancements will be short-lived, and the backlash will be even worse.

I believe in supporting innovation, but with an eye towards building it thoughtfully, such that the gains can be sustainable.

If you want to look at the past posts, here’s a list:

For this year, I’ve heard a few people suggesting that they were curious how I’d pull off an optimistic post given all the nonsense the larger world is facing, and the US (in particular) appears to be treading down a stupidly dangerous path. I have seen some suggest that the capture of the White House by at least some Silicon Valley interests could be good for innovation, but I think that’s only true at the margins.

The success of American dynamism comes from a variety of sources, but our basic institutions are a key part of them. And the MAGA/Trump world is threatening to rip apart some of those institutions while destroying other important norms that lead to innovative societies. The attacks on free speech, the gleeful vindictiveness against a list of perceived enemies, and the general openness to corruption certainly don’t bode well for building sustainable, useful innovations.

On top of that, the rush of big tech and media companies to fawn over and fund Donald Trump in his return to the White House similarly suggests that they’re not looking to push innovation forward, but rather to become toadies hoping for handouts.

So why am I still optimistic? Because this actually offers an important alternative (and potentially better) path towards innovation. This is not denying all of the terrible shit that is going to happen over the next few years, nor the harm that many will have to deal with, especially the most vulnerable among us.

But it can also kickstart alternatives. Rather than relying on the slow and messy process of antitrust or questionable regulations, the mess that the government is can open up opportunities to build better systems from the ground up. Obviously, I am very biased, but I think the rapid adoption and growth of Bluesky gives you just a tiny glance into the kinds of things that may be coming. And Bluesky is just one example – there are many areas ripe for building user-empowering protocols and systems.

When other stuff goes bad, it opens up an opportunity to build something fundamentally better, something that starts from a different conception, not just on creating “the next [fill in the blank enshittified service]” but a technology that is much more resistant to enshittification in the first place.

As we’re seeing with Bluesky, some of that change is difficult. Part of the important nature of Bluesky is that it’s built to give more power to the users, and yet we often see users demanding that the company reject that principle in favor of a preferred outcome, even as users have the ability to build that outcome for themselves.

We’ve spent much of the past two decades fighting over who was going to better protect people online: the big evil companies or the big evil government. And hopefully what we’re learning is that neither is the best solution. Providing users the tools (whether on their own or via third parties) is going to lead to better (and more competitive) long-term outcomes.

There will be growing pains because we’re all learning (or relearning) much of this on the fly. But the opportunity is now. People are reasonably upset with both the way the government handles things and the way the biggest companies handle things. Rooting for one or the other to get better seems futile. Let’s focus on making sure that neither matters as much.

We’re already seeing it happen in certain corners of the internet, and there’s plenty more opportunity where that comes from. Just today, I was having a conversation (on Bluesky) about possibilities for a more “protocol” approach to e-commerce, not just social media. There are all sorts of creative ways in which we can rethink the internet and bring it back to its original fundamental promise.

I don’t like the fact that we are in a position where the biggest companies and our elected officials are equally untrustworthy, but if that’s where we are, we might as well use it as an opportunity to route around both and build better systems that aren’t focused on extraction from the public, but empowering the public.

The concerning actions of both government and big tech companies, rather than being cause for despair, can actually spur people to build better, more decentralized systems that empower users rather than institutions.

Yes, many things are terrible, but history has shown us that the greatest innovations often seem to take hold at these kinds of moments. The need is there, as is the public’s distrust in the way things were done before. That has led some to embrace the wrecking ball approach to government, which seems quite likely to fail in disastrous ways.

A more positive approach is to build the systems that route around all of that, at a moment when many people are tired of the old systems and are much more open to adopting something that is both new and empowering. If we have to be dealing with lots of terrible things, I’m going to dedicate my efforts towards getting better systems online that help empower individuals, and I hope that others will join in the process.

As always, my final thoughts on these posts are thanking all of you, the community around Techdirt, for making all of this worthwhile. The community remains an amazing thing to me. I’ve said in the past that I write as if I’m going to share my thoughts into an empty void, not expecting anyone to ever pay attention, and I’m always amazed when anyone does, whether it’s to disagree with me, add some additional insights, challenge my thinking, or even reach out to talk about how to actually move some ideas forward.

I know this community is full of creators, thinkers and advocates who care deeply about using technology to make the world better. Let’s use this opportunity to prove that innovation, thoughtfully applied, can route around institutional failure and corruption. Once again, thank you to those who are reading this for making Techdirt such a wonderful and special place, and let’s focus on being truly optimistic about the opportunities in front of us.