When I read the news a few weeks ago that Elon Musk had offered to buy Twitter, I wrote this:

Twitter is too important to be owned and controlled by a single person. The opposite should be happening. Twitter should be decentralized as a protocol that powers an ecosystem of communication products and services.

— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) April 14, 2022

I continue to believe that decentralization is the right long-term answer for a core communications protocol of the Internet and hope that Elon will think about doing just that once he owns it and is not concerned with the stock price and meeting quarterly revenue targets.

My partner Albert wrote this yesterday:

1 – restore full API access – anyone should be able to write a full client, including their own timeline algorithm (this could require a monthly subscription)

— Albert Wenger 🌎🔥⌛ (@albertwenger) April 25, 2022

Albert’s suggestion would return Twitter to where it was a decade and a half ago when it first launched and that would be a fantastic first step towards full decentralization.

I continue to believe that a single person owning one of the most important communications protocols of the internet is a bad idea, but maybe it can be a bridge to something better.

Certainly being a public company has not been the right ownership model to make the big fundamental changes which are badly needed.