Vitalik Buterin’s Social Media Fix: Robots Will Cry, Humans Will Pay 💸🤖

by

In a world where social media has become a madhouse of algorithms and existential dread, Vitalik Buterin, the enigmatic architect of Ethereum, suggests a solution so absurd it could only come from a man who once debated blockchain mechanics with a ghost (not really, but one can dream). “Alternative clients,” he proclaims, “could save us from AI dystopia-or at least make it more dystopian with added fees.”

Ethereum’s Answer to Social Media: A Rebellion of APIs and Stubborn Humans

The problem, dear reader, is not the bots. It is the lack of proper competition in a space where everyone is either selling your data or trying to sell you something else. Vitalik, with the wisdom of a man who once turned a cryptocurrency into a $1 trillion idea, declares that “adversarial interoperability” is the cure. Imagine, if you will, a world where apps sneak into the digital realm like mischievous goblins, bypassing the gatekeepers of Meta and Twitter. A world where APIs are weaponized, and LLMs duel like dueling pistols in a 19th-century salon.

Given that there’s such high demand for it, this seems like the sort of thing that individual social media platforms could do without needing any agreement, no?

In which case, the problem is that social media is not competitive enough.

So the _real_ institutional problem is…

– vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 25, 2025

This, Vitalik suggests, is the digital equivalent of a peasant uprising. A noble cause, if one ignores the fact that the peasants are just trying to avoid paying $30/month for a “human-only” experience. One must admire the audacity.

Yishan Wong, former Reddit CEO and self-proclaimed guardian of the “front page of the Internet,” argues that social media must be stripped of AI entirely. “Humans only!” he cries, as if shouting at a parade of sentient chatbots. Buterin, ever the pragmatist, retorts that perhaps we need more community-centric clients-apps that launch “in the face” of censorship, like digital guerrillas armed with code and caffeine.

The Decentralized Dream: A Fairy Tale for the 21st Century

Of course, this utopia of decentralized social media will require navigating the labyrinthine Terms of Service of modern platforms. Vitalik, with the optimism of a man who once believed in a blockchain-based everything, suggests these rebels might need to flee to “better jurisdictions”-a euphemism for anywhere with laxer regulations and more questionable legal systems.

And yet, the demand for “human-only” platforms is so dire that users might pay $30/month to avoid seeing a cat video algorithmically curated by a machine that hates them. Vitalik, ever the visionary, has long championed Farcaster as the Twitter of tomorrow. Meanwhile, Farcaster’s team pivoted to “wallet-first” experiences, because why not monetize your social media like it’s a medieval tax on friendship?

Read More

2025-12-25 16:21