Tim Berners-Lee and John Bruce — The Future of Everything Festival Virtual Series (The Wall Street Journal on Twitter)

2 Likes

Thanks for sharing @megoth. Yea, hmm… this is interesting.

I am wondering what impression this would’ve given the person watching who had never heard of Solid before. I think at most - if they have some interest in privacy and decentralization - they will type in “Solid Tim Berner’s-Lee” in Google and see what rolls out. But without much excitement or any real clarity what Solid is and does.

Somewhere half-way in TBL mentions the (possibly) coming ‘Techlash’ as the main adoption driver for Solid and Privacy as the key selling point. John Bruce follows-up with new innovations becoming possible, leaving in the middle what these are. Later on he mentions better ways to deal with healthcare data, but again from the privacy-perspective (your health data + privacy is the clearest cut case you can make in that). And also he adds Decentralization as one of the selling points, implying it goes against the monopolization of Big Tech molochs but not highlighting the real advantage of that.

As facilitator of Humane Tech Community I have spent lots of time helping to promote the Techlash. The problem with it is that it moves very, very, very slowly against tidal forces. Also the vast majority of people - including the majority of techies - either don’t care about their privacy as much as they should, or - when they do - are unwilling or unable to adopt better practices around it. In general most people are ignorant to the real needs for Privacy and Decentralization.

While Privacy and Decentralization were mentioned as selling points, they are hardly unique selling points (USP’s). Especially on privacy it is a crowded market right now, and - with corona and all - interest for decentralized solutions is picking up.

How could TBL and JB have made a better elevator pitch in this short interview?

Imho the aforementioned entire new realm of innovative business applications should be highlighted at the outset, and made very concrete with clear examples that speak to people outside of the tech world. Then in secondary priority mention how this will also fix the privacy and monepolization problems.

In summary: go from rather technical USP’s to business-oriented USP’s.

(I posted about related topic before in The biggest challenges for Solid are not technical in nature).


PS. I have asked one of our members to react - if he wishes - who has a unique refreshing perspective to bring to the table in addition to the Privacy concerns (that always gets most focus).

3 Likes