Jack Dorsey Blocked On Twitter By Netscape’s Marc Andreessen

A very public clash between Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chairman of Twitter, and Marc Andreessen has been thrust further into the limelight.

Marc Andreessen is nowadays best known as an Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist, due to his role as the co-founder of the Andreessen Horowitz fund.

However he is perhaps known as being the co-founder of Netscape Communications, a pioneer in Web browsers in the 1990s.

But Andreessen and Jack Dorsey have been clashing of late over the issue of “Web3” concept, a potential new decentralised vision of the internet based on blockchain, CNBC reported.

Dorsey blocked

Earlier this week both Tesla’s Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey raised concerns that Web3 is owned by venture capitalists and not the people.

“You don’t own “web3,” Dorsey said in a tweet. “The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label. Know what you’re getting into…”

Dorsey has also been critical of the venture capital industry, and made several specific remarks about Andreessen Horowitz.

Marc Andreessen meanwhile is of course a venture capitalist and is major backer of Web3 ventures

Andreessen Horowitz has a page on its website called “web3 Policy Hub,” with the subhed: “We Deserve a Better Internet.”

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Then on Wednesday, Dorsey tweeted: “I’m officially banned from Web3,” alongside a screenshot showing he had been blocked by Andreessen.

The VC firm did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on Thursday.

Web3 concept

At the moment Web3 remains just a loose concept, but the idea is that it will be powered by the blockchain, the technology behind many major cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, is appealing to camapigners.

Already a number of entrepreneurs are trying to design and build the technologies and protocols that would support Web3.

Web3 is thus called because it apparently follows the Web1 (very early walled garden internet as found on AOL in the 1990s) and Web2 (which is what most of today’s online platforms are touted to be.

According to Web3 Advocates, the problem with Web2 is that today’s online platforms are too centralised and controlled by a handful of large internet companies, including Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook parent company Meta.

Dorsey it should be remembered is, like Elon Musk, a firm supporter of bitcoin , but he is less keen on other cryptocurrencies.