Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger: Blockchain has a long way to go

American philosopher Larry Sanger co-founded Wikipedia in 2001 and continues to research and teach philosophy. He has a particular interest in the science of knowledge. With a profound understanding of the Internet and blockchain technology, he joined the blockchain project Everipedia in 2017.

The interview records Larry Sanger's journey, which can be found here.

During his university years, Sanger began to see the Internet as a potential way to decentralize knowledge. His early projects involved online forums for teachers and students to engage in discussions outside of school. He stated:

What drove me was the possibility that the Internet would enable crowds to create new knowledge resources. The way the Oxford English Dictionary was put together and its similarity to Wikipedia amazed me. Creating shared knowledge resources was really what drove me, not making money.

The Origin of Everipedia

After leaving Wikipedia in 2002, Sanger launched his first personal project, Citizendium, in 2006, which rejected anonymous editing and implemented an expert review process but ultimately did not succeed. He then focused on developing educational projects until becoming the Chief Information Officer of Everipedia in 2017.

Everipedia is an online encyclopedia built on blockchain technology, and by 2019, the project had completed the first phase of migrating to the blockchain. After launching on the EOS mainnet a year ago and conducting a token airdrop, it is now ready to go live. Sanger commented:

I think it will still be a few years before decentralized applications become widespread. We are still exploring the space of blockchain. There are certainly DApps that work well now, but I think there is a long way to go with blockchain technology.

In all of Sanger's projects, the idea of eliminating centralized information is very strong. On the eve of July 4th, Independence Day in the United States, Sanger initiated a 48-hour social media strike on Twitter, urging major social platforms to return control of privacy data and messages to the public.

We are on strike against social media giants abusing our free speech, privacy, and security.

We demand social media to be decentralized and to control our own data.

My posts today and tomorrow are a protest. I will post about nothing else.

Please join us. #SocialMediaStrike

— Larry Sanger (@lsanger) July 4, 2019

Sanger believes the Internet is very powerful, and blockchain technology is increasing transparency, accountability, and incentivizing tokenization, complementing each other. He further expressed his views on the future development of the Internet:

The future of the Internet will not be dominated by any new startups from Silicon Valley, not even Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. They won't have the power, they are too controlling, and they don't understand the big picture.

Blockchain 10 Years Later

Sanger mentioned that the blockchain industry needs to focus more on user experience. He believes that "it must be as simple as any ordinary application or website." And when DApps start competing with traditional applications, the public will start paying attention to the fact that these applications are built on blockchain. He said:

Most people don't care about blockchain at this point. There's no right or wrong; it's just a fact we have to deal with.

Regarding the development of blockchain technology so far, Sanger believes it is still in the exploratory stage, and it will take time to verify what major applications will emerge:

We haven't figured out the best way to use this technology or what the biggest application areas will be. But I think the world of blockchain will be very different in 10 years, and we won't know what that will look like.

Finally, regarding cryptocurrency, Sanger stated that he is not a cryptocurrency investor. He holds cryptocurrencies only to understand how they work. He also hopes for a decentralized world currency system and is pleased to see power taken back from governments.

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