Developer Battles
The web3 ideology parallels the renaissance in older times. There have always been periods of great authoritarian institutions followed by periods of rebellions & independence. It happened with kings, monarchies, religions, banks and it is happening now with social media monopolies.
In the context of developing applications' history is full of cases where restrictions from Big Tech made startups completely disappear or entirely changed their business model.
Microsoft vs. Netscape
In 1993 Marc Andressen saw the potential of what the internet could become and envisioned that the gateway was going to be the browser, full of images, videos, and color. Netscape Navigator started to onboard thousands of users per day, and later filed for the first internet startup, creating the grounds of Sillicon Valley.
After being noticed by Bill Gates, he launched Internet Explorer for free as default on every Windows OS. He used dirty tactics like threatening vendors not to make Netscape the default or their Windows licenses would be canceled. This eventually killed the Netscape business that was based on licenses and over the years fade into the abyss.
Google vs. Yelp
When searching for a restaurant Google shows you the results of Google Maps and its reviews. In the past, it also showed Yelp results. But a 2015 paper from Yelp suggested that Google intentionally prioritizes their listings over Yelps.
This started a multi-year legal battle in which Google ended up winning and dominating the review industry. Much like the previous case, they used their platform dominance to position their product ahead of the competition forcing them out of business.
Facebook vs. Zynga
Zynga was the first to exploit the potential of “share it with a friend” on Facebook being a pioneer in Viral Marketing. It was at this time that the growth of their most popular game “FarmVille” reached hundreds of millions of users and amassed 20% of the total revenues generated by Facebook.
Complaints surfaced accusing Facebook of prioritizing FarmVille notifications over other games. Facebook respond by limiting the number of notifications the game could trigger, limiting the revenues of Zynga by 80% and forcing them to leave Facebook.
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Twitter vs. Mobile Clients
Twitter at the beginning was mainly focused on web and allowed developers to create mobile clients through its API. All was fine until Twitter decided to have full control over the mobile experience acquiring a software company to build the official mobile application and closing the Api for external developers, sending them to bankruptcy.
Epic Games vs. Apple
Apple removed Fortnite App from the App Store because they wanted to charge customers directly from their application instead of collecting payments through apple payments infrastructure.
Apple forces developers to comply with its terms and charges 30% of every in-app transaction. 30% cut rate is unheard of for a thriving capitalist society.
Web3
Blockchains are open & permissionless software platforms. Means we can create applications without fear of an API being shut down or a company suddenly changing its policies.
For example, in the case of Layer 2 trying to scale Ethereum, no one fears that one day they will be removed or shut down since no one person or company can decide on the future of Ethereum. Everything is decided democratically.
Conclusion
Clearly, all these companies are exercising monopoly power & lobby to continue growing in the trillions of dollars and closing the doors to infinite creators of apps, games, etc.
We cannot see the impact of this, since we cannot know what does not exist, but it is logical to assume that we are missing on a diverse & thriving ecosystem of apps.
To learn more about web3 technology, refer to my other posts. For more information, feel free to reach out on Twitter
