Jack Dorsey laments his role in creating a centralized internet

Twitter founder He likes you to know that he also misses the early days of the Internet when protocols like IRC made the web seem like a place of limitless possibility. He also knows that he is partly to blame for the current state of affairs.

“The days of Usenet, IRC, and the web…even email (using PGP)… were great,” Dorsey said. On Saturday in a tweet I spotted . “The centralization of discovery and identity in companies has really hurt the internet. I realize I’m partly to blame, and I regret it.”

Dorsey’s tweet is a wonderful acknowledgment from a tech executive who made billions creating a platform that focused on the way we consume news. Twitter may not be as big as Facebook and TikTok, but its impact on the information economy is undeniable. Many of us turn to Twitter when we want to follow current events as close to real time as possible, but sometimes the company has struggled to to the detriment of our public institutions.

This isn’t the first time Dorsey has lamented the current state of the internet. In December, he went on About how Web3 has already been embraced by investors. “You don’t own Web3,” he said at the time. “Venture capitalists and their LPs do. You will never escape their incentives.”