Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block and co-founder of Twitter, is not merely developing new social applications such as Bitchat and Sun Day; he has also allocated $10 million to the funding of experimental open source projects and other tools that have the potential to revolutionize the social media landscape.

Dorsey, Evan Henshaw-Plath, “Calle,” the creator of the e-cash platform Cashu, Alex Gleason, the former engineering head at Truth Social, and Jeff Gardner, the fourth employee at Intercom, are all members of the online collective “and Other Stuff,” which was established in May.

The group initially met through their collaboration on Nostr, an open, “apolitical” social networking protocol that has been the focus of Dorsey’s attention since Twitter’s sale to Elon Musk and his resignation from the board of Bluesky, a social network.
In addition to Cashu, the team will also experiment with other tools, such as ActivityPub, the protocol that powers the decentralized app Mastodon and others.

Dorsey has been increasingly critical of the evolution of social media platforms in recent years, asserting that Twitter should never have become a company and that Bluesky appears to be reiterating the errors he and his colleagues made at Twitter.

Henshaw-Plath elucidates that the team at “and Other Stuff” is resolute in its intention to operate as a “community of hackers” rather than establish a corporation.
In collaboration, they are developing technologies that could encompass new consumer social applications and a variety of initiatives, such as developer tools or libraries, that would enable others to develop their own applications.

For example, the team is responsible for an application called Shakespeare, which is similar to the app-building platform Lovable, but is designed to facilitate the development of social apps based on Nostr with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

In addition to the applications that Dorsey has already released, the group is also responsible for the voice note app heynow, the Cashu wallet, the private messaging platform White Noise, and the social community +chorus, which is based on Nostr.
The two individuals convened at a hackathon in Switzerland for a conversation, as Dorsey resides in Costa Rica and Henshaw-Plath in New Zealand.
In the nearly hour-long episode, Dorsey explores the history of Twitter and his philosophies regarding the faults of social media and potential solutions.

“It took me a considerable amount of time to come to the realization that this was the case; I did not truly articulate it until I returned as CEO for the second time.”
However, Dorsey asserts that it is challenging for an entity such as [Twitter] to function as a corporation due to the corporate incentives that are present when it aims to be a protocol.
He acknowledges that Twitter was at the mercy of its advertisers, a situation that Musk also encounters, despite the fact that he has taken Twitter, which is now known as X, private. Musk has even threatened advertisers with litigation regarding ad boycotts that are motivated by their apprehensions regarding X’s lack of moderation and controversial statements that Musk has made.

Dorsey acknowledges that the business and Twitter’s stock price were both benefited by pandering to advertisers; however, he believes that it was the “wrong thing to do for the internet.”

Dorsey asserts that advertisers possess the ability to eliminate revenue by simply withdrawing their funds.
“So if [Twitter] were an open protocol, if it were truly an open project, it would be possible to establish a business on top of it, and it could be a very healthy business.”

An initiative to establish an open protocol within Twitter was ultimately funded by Dorsey, which subsequently evolved into Bluesky.
However, Dorsey is of the opinion that Bluesky is facing the same obstacles as traditional social media due to its structure, which is funded by VCs, as are other ventures.
He notes that it has already been required to comply with government requests and has encountered difficulties with moderation.

“I believe Jay [Graber, CEO of Bluesky] is exceptional.” Dorsey expressed his admiration for the team to Henshaw-Plath, but he expressed his disagreement with the structure.
“I am interested in directing the energy in a different direction, one that is more akin to Bitcoin, which is completely open and not owned by anyone from a protocol layer.”
“That is also what I observe in Nostr,” he states. Dorsey further states, “That is the area in which I would like to focus my energy, rather than in a more corporate direction, even if it is a public benefit corporation.”
In subsequent episodes, Henshaw-Plath will conduct interviews with additional individuals who possess a unique perspective on the evolution of social media and technology.
These individuals include journalists such as Kara Swisher and Taylor Lorenz, former Twitter head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth, Substack co-founder Chris Best, Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine, Cory Doctorow (who coined the term “enshittification” to describe the current state of much of the web), and renowned misinformation researcher Renée DiResta.

According to Henshaw-Plath, the team at “and Other Stuff” is also developing a social media “Bill of Rights” that delineates the requirements for social media platforms in the areas of privacy, security, interoperability, transparency, identity, self-governance, and portability.

They are of the opinion that this will enable platforms, such as Bluesky and others, to maintain their accountability to their consumers in the face of external pressure.

Dorsey’s initial investment has enabled the new nonprofit to commence operations, and he contributed to the development of several of its initial iOS applications.
In the interim, other individuals are dedicating their time to the development of Android versions, developer tools, and various social media initiatives.

According to Henshaw-Plath, there is still additional work in progress. He hints, “There are topics that we are not yet prepared to discuss, but they will be highly thrilling.”