A Look at Decentralized Social Networks

Decentralized social networks have been a main category that founders in crypto have experimented with building. Opinions on whether they should exist are usually extremely polarized. In what follows, an analysis of different approaches taken to deliver decentralized social networks is presented. To begin, it may be helpful to summarize why relevant agents (firms that make the applications, users that consume and creators that make content) may or may not be incentivized to use such platforms. 

The first benefit of decentralizing social media is the idea of playing a positive sum game instead of a zero-sum game where users are locked in silos controlled by individual firms. Even the most primitive approach (sufficient decentralization) provides access to a global registry of users; thus, each application that attracts users grows the global registry of users, increasing the user base for all other applications.