Corporate control over payments is a topic worth discussing but I'm talking about corporate control over identity. Twitter usernames are identities. Email addresses are identities. Phone numbers are identities. IP addresses are identities. Domain names are identities. All of those things are corporately controlled and can destroy businesses and communities on a whim.
I agree with you that public key crypto solves many of these problems, but you still need to publish your public key somewhere. And you need an infrastructure where public keys are first class citizens with the platform.
I gave ENS as an example precisely because it is open source digital public infrastructure where such things can be published forever, and it is not corporately controlled. It happens to use a blockchain to do consensus and create incentives for people to opt into running the public infrastructure. I personally think these game theoretical incentives are integral for the functioning of the platform but am not married to the idea if there are better ones.
Something like Ethereum is an anti-authoritarian platform. You don't use it unless you desire the qualities of anti-authoritarianism. For everything else there's centralized solutions.
I agree with you that public key crypto solves many of these problems, but you still need to publish your public key somewhere. And you need an infrastructure where public keys are first class citizens with the platform.
I gave ENS as an example precisely because it is open source digital public infrastructure where such things can be published forever, and it is not corporately controlled. It happens to use a blockchain to do consensus and create incentives for people to opt into running the public infrastructure. I personally think these game theoretical incentives are integral for the functioning of the platform but am not married to the idea if there are better ones.
Something like Ethereum is an anti-authoritarian platform. You don't use it unless you desire the qualities of anti-authoritarianism. For everything else there's centralized solutions.