Craig Newmark: commitment

Transcript context

…Seller evaluations, right? You’ve never involved them. Podcasts get evaluated on Apple, right? This gets so many stars. It’s just too easy to game those systems now. What I’m hoping for are user authentication systems, not state- or government-instituted ones exclusively, because I worry about governments. A lot in life is based on who you trust, and you want to be able to know who you’re talking to. I don’t want to turn over a lot of this to the government because of some of my political biases. I’m looking for balance. If you can identify yourself to other parties in a way that shows you are who you claim you are, that can be good. The credit card companies working together may have a solution. Driver’s licenses may be, in part, a solution. Ninety percent of Americans have phones with digital wallets. Maybe there’s something there, but I need to run this by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because they think of things that I will not think of, and they may tell me why my idea is terrible. What do you think of the simple model that institutions get gamed and they deteriorate over time? If there’s a new restaurant in New York City, it will be great for the first six to nine months. Then, too many people want to come. The people who come after that are less informed. They slack on quality. There’s always a line out the door. Everything becomes a bit worse, and the way to live life is to find the peaks of things in early times and then move on. Correct or not?…

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