VC and EigenLayer founder debate: Is Web3 data ownership a false proposition?

Original translation: Alex Liu, Foresight News

Kyle Samani, Partner at Multicoin:

I used to believe in owning your data, but not anymore.

So-called “ownership” is really about “exclusivity.” This is most clearly seen when it comes to assets:

• a) I have a $5 bill and you dont. Therefore I can spend the $5 and you cant.

• b) I own a $1 million piece of art. Rather than loaning it to a museum for others to see, I hang it on my wall for my own enjoyment.

Ownership — and therefore exclusivity — is why cryptocurrencies are so closely tied to finance.

Now let’s think about what it means to own our data. To be honest, I don’t know what it means. Advocates of the concept of data ownership often accuse big tech companies of holding our data and manipulating us through advertising. I disagree.

It costs a lot to run a servน้ำแข็ง like Facebook or Google. They need to make money. Most people are not willing to pay for it.

1) Ability to speak

2) Read what others are saying

So if you want to create a service that is *avAIlable to the general public*, you need to advertise. And if you want to advertise, you need to provide relevant ads, which naturally requires targeted content.

Advocates of data ownership would counter that “the problem is that you can’t actively opt in to using a different algorithm. Every major platform actually offers a single algorithm, and they change it constantly.”

This criticism is valid. But this is not an argument for “owning your own data”;

1) Make laws to enforce algorithms: public/flexible/bring your own algorithm (X has taken the first step in this regard by making the algorithm public, but this is not enough)

2) Keep data open so third parties can choose to access the data

Im not the first person to come up with this solution. @albertwenger talks about it in his excellent blog Continuations .

I think it’s more likely that legislation will force big tech companies to offer algorithmic choices (similar to how you choose a browser in Windows) rather than hoping that a new web based on shared open data that requires many developers will take off because the existing network effects are too strong. But even if I’m wrong, and the farcaster model does reach “escape velocity” to take off, the important property is not “owning your data” but enabling third-party developers to build on it.

You could argue that the distinction isnt actually a distinction, because in order for third-party developers to be able to use it, you need to own your data. I agree, thats technically true. But that misses the point. The important part isnt ownership. The important part is third-party access (which, as mentioned above, is possible under the current model, it just needs legislation).

This doesnt mean there isnt sensitive data. Obviously, financial and medical data is sensitive. There are clear standards today for exporting data from the electronic medical record to the patient so that the patient can have a copy.

It sounds important to say that you should own your data, but when you dig deeper, you’ll find that the concept doesn’t actually make sense. You can only own things that are naturally excludable. Data is always infinitely replicable. Assets are scarce.

Okay, enough complaining, come and refute me, everyone.

EigenLayer founder responded to Sreeram Kannan:

Owning data means you have “property rights” to the data:

• 1) others cannot use it without your permission (i.e. security), and

• 2) You can use it at any time without asking for permission from others (i.e. liveness).

Ideas, software and media can be copied infinitely, but we have intellectual property rights to protect the rights of creators. Data rights are similar.

All viable business models, including advertising business models, can be built on data rights.

Why do we need data property rights? The market economy transforms things without property rights into things with property rights. The question is not whether data property rights exist: companies have strong data property rights, but individuals do not actually have them. Encryption technology emerged to ensure that individuals can obtain data property rights by reducing the cost of enforcement.

Kyle Samani responded:

You are being very generous by calling things like tweets intellectual property. You can fool yourself and call them anything, but they have no value.

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