"However, over the past six years, we’ve also seen the user cost of switching
between centralized communication services reduced substantially,
particularly given the tendency towards addressing with user-owned identifiers
like phone numbers."
Does he really believe that phone numbers are user-owned?
My phone carrier owns my number. If I'm lucky, I might be able to take
it to a new carrier. It's far more likely that I'd drop the number in
favor of one in the area code in which I actually live, however.
I own my own domain, and I self-host my own email. I'm not likely to change
it for geographical reasons. It has a much stronger tie to me than some
string of digits used by an analog voice network from the last century.
The other user cost of switching between centralized services is network
effects. If you want to switch from ICQ to AIM, you need to get
all your friends to join you.
Of course. Nothing in life is guaranteed. I'm sure the Buddha would tell me
that "there ain't no such thing as permanent". Nevertheless, I've had
my domain name longer than I've had my current phone number. I'm far
more likely to put up a fight for that name than I would be to fight for the
current string of digits that represents me in the phone system.
Maybe the whole concept of user-owned identifiers is a myth, or a Platonic
ideal. At least in my case, my phone number is pretty far from the Platonic
ideal.
