Data portability, the ability to transfer your digital information across platforms, has long been touted as one of the key benefits of crypto. The notion of carrying your social graph across the internet, taking your video game items across platforms, and logging into any site with a unified identity has caught the attention of developers and builders, but is yet to gain mainstream traction. The fragility of our digital lives is under the spotlight now more than ever, with recent events such as the potential TikTok ban posing a threat to creators who could lose years of content and audience relationships overnight.
The root of the problem is that despite living in a digital world, we do not truly own or control our data. This lack of control, akin to living on rented land, has been of particular concern to crypto investors who have championed the cause of data portability and user sovereignty since the early days of Web2. The vision of an internet where users, not platforms, control their digital lives was a driving force behind crypto. However, despite crypto’s success in the financial world, the promise of a self-sovereign internet with portable data remains unrealized.
Several attempts have been made to address this issue. NFTs, for example, allow for the movement of items across games. Decentralized social networks like Farcaster and Bluesky promise portable social graphs, and there have been strides towards verifiable identity standards. But none of these initiatives have seen widespread adoption. The question for most users is not about data sovereignty, but rather, what practical use does it have?
The answer lies in artificial intelligence (AI). Without AI, data is only useful within the confines of the platform it resides on. With AI, data becomes a valued digital commodity that can power a multitude of applications. For example, your message history can help AI understand your writing style and preferences, and with self-sovereign wallets, developers can build personalized AI experiences.
However, there are still obstacles to overcome. Connecting data can be inconvenient for users, and developers are often unwilling to make it easy for users to transfer their data to other platforms. This results in each new platform becoming another walled garden, perpetuating the problem they set out to solve.
New incentive structures like DataDAOs could be the solution to this cycle. By providing financial incentives for users to transfer their data, the initial inconvenience of data portability can be overcome. If the data is onboarded in a self-sovereign, interoperable manner, developers can build applications that were previously impossible.
Imagine a personalized health coach that can analyze your sleep data from Oura, your workouts from Strava, your nutrition from food delivery apps, and your stress levels from communication patterns. Or, an AI assistant that truly understands you because it can access your complete digital history while maintaining your privacy through granular permissions.
The advent of AI and new financial incentives are creating a potential win-win situation for both users and developers. Users gain immediate value plus better AI experiences, developers get access to rich user data to build new applications, and networks grow stronger with each new participant. We now have both the technology to make data portability valuable and the incentives to drive adoption.
The original promise of crypto, a self-sovereign, interoperable internet where users own their data, is yet to be fulfilled. But with the creation of financial incentives to onboard data and the leveraging of AI’s capabilities, we finally have a window of opportunity to make the internet truly user-owned.
