Social Media and the Distributed Self

Abstract

The key to the roaring success of the Web 2.0 platforms has been the way they have inserted themselves between traditional broadcasters and networks of friends through activities of the influencers with high follower counts. Though they are constantly at risk of being booted off the platforms, they were able to build up large audiences without bearing the cost of server and network bandwidth, choosing to take a small royalty instead once they have reached a threshold. If influencers can build networks of equivalent size on the decentralised systems, that may bring Web 2.0 to an early finish. However, those platforms can do a lot to prevent a kind of disruption they are unlikely to favour. If that is the case, Web3 may remain a niche interest for the average user if they see entertainment as a greater priority than social network control. As it was in the days of Web 1.0, it's not hard to wind up shuffled off to an unseen corner of the internet; you just have to be someone who does not get promoted by a search engine or social-network provider. Decentralisation may do little to change the power-law dynamics of social networks.