It is easy to place your bets as all three companies are publicly traded. Square is part of the Fintech 50 Index. Facebook and Twitter are big media businesses.
Bias disclosure. While I have no commercial stake at time of writing I do have two biases.
1. Daily Fintech is a media business writing about Fintech and building Fintech spin off ventures; so Jack Dorsey running both a media and a Fintech business seems quite normal to me.
2. If I was given a choice of hanging out with Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg, I would choose Dorsey (although I have never met either).
There are two major players in Finance:
1. Bitcoin, a decentralized, permissionless network/currency.
2. Cenralised Banks and the Governments who license/regulate the Banks.
Facebook is trying something hard – to compete with Banks while pleasing the Governments who license/regulate them.
The Twitter/Square strategy is simpler and more radical, betting on a decentralized, permissionless network that Banks and Governments would love to stop if they could.
Facebook is doing a delicate dance with regulators. This delicate dance takes a looong time, thus over 2 years since Facebook announced Libra and we have nada, but it will work in the end. Governments/regulators know how to work with a centralized business where you can negotiate with a CEO; a decentralized, permissionless network with no CEO is a scary alternative.
Placing your bets is really a bet on the centralised history/current reality versus the decentralised future.
My bet is on the decentralised future for three reasons:
1. All. centralised. systems. are. hacked. All of them, including Twitter in July 2020, and even the best managed banks. This is a massive risk.
2. Cannot do evil (programmed into decentralised networks) is better than “we promise to do no evil” by managers of centralised businesses.
3. The Internet is decentralised, even with huge centralised businesses making the big money today.
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Source: https://dailyfintech.com/2021/09/28/part-4-place-you-bets-on-this-behemoth-battle/
