Proof That Your Digital Identity Ain’t Yours

TL;DR

• X (Twitter) just confiscated the username @music from its owner of 16 years, Jeremy Vaught.

• Ol’ Jez wasn’t so much the owner of the username as much as he was a renter.

• In Web3, you get to own your username across all platforms, which might not feel ground breaking at first glance…until you read stories like this.

Full Story

The ‘cool new function’ (the CNF, if you will) of Web1 was: information everywhere.

The CNF of Web2 was: interaction (posting text/photos/videos/comments)

The CNF of Web3 is: ownership (of our data and digital identities).

With that in mind, the next time an inquisitive uncle or curious cousin asks “yeah, but what does ‘ownership of a digital identity’ actually look like?” you can point to this story:

X (Twitter) just confiscated the username @music from its owner of 16 years, Jeremy Vaught.

Which isn’t great – but also – absolutely within its right as a private company.

What it proves though, is that ol’ Jez wasn’t so much the owner of the username as much as he was a renter.

(And what JV didn’t realize was his ‘rental agreement’ was paid-in-full by his personal data – and subject to sudden/immediate termination).

You’ve heard us harp on about this in the past, but – in Web3, you get to own your username across all platforms, which might not feel ground breaking at first glance…

Until you read stories like this.