Why Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey Are Warming to Blockchain

The point, he said, is that decentralized networks, such as those based on blockchain models, can often enable more positive overall social outcomes despite the relative inefficiency of their command-and-control architecture.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently made a bombshell post outlining a "Privacy-focused vision for social networking" that suggested a move to embrace end-to-end encryption of users' data on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

In a separate post of a video interview with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain, Zuckerberg speculated on the prospect of Facebook using a blockchain model to enable decentralized logins without its servers acting as authenticators.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears to have gotten religion when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

It's fair to say there is a significant degree of skepticism that social media companies, having made fortunes out of a centralized model that accumulates user data, will change their stripes.

The departure of certain senior executives, including those who oversaw the development of the centralized data-gathering model and the algorithms that mine that data to deliver audiences to advertisers, has led others to conclude that Zuckerberg is indeed serious.

These companies are now contemplating a revised model in which, to paraphrase Bruce Schneier, users are no longer the product but the customer.

It's an open question whether such companies can make money on a model in which the nodes in the network are free from control by the center.

These are questions for developers of decentralized solutions such as those enabled by blockchain technology.

What kind of governance models will be in place so that users are truly able to maintain a healthy degree of autonomy even as new centralizing forces emerge to extract value within the new paradigm?