MCP is 'an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs.' If we’re moving toward a world where AIs are expected to do All The Things, interfacing with our applications and services, then having a universal adapter that lets AIs talk to everything is undeniably powerful.

Once upon a time, digital systems were built around a beautifully simple idea: one user, one identity, one device, one intent. That model worked, for some value of "worked." Mostly, it was good enough to solve 80% of the use cases.

Most digital systems were built around a simple model: one user, one identity, one device, one intent. If you need more than that, that's what password sharing is for, right? (Note: that was sarcasm.) Who needs delegation? Reality, which has definitely included sharing passwords, has always been messier.

The tech is ready for decentralization. The governance is not. This is the final post in a four-part series exploring decentralization not as a buzzword, but as a series of hard tradeoffs that digital infrastructure teams, architects, and strategy leads must navigate.

What if centralized dominance is just what success looks like in our current system? Today, I want to take a step back and ask: Why is it so hard to justify decentralization in the first place? What are we really rewarding when we call a system “successful”?

It’s easy to say you want more control over your systems. But the cost of decentralization in money, complexity, and overhead can hit hard when the invoice arrives. This week, we’re taking that one step further: If flexibility or even malleability is the goal, how much are you willing to pay for it?

What if the real innovation is not centralization vs decentralization, but the ability to shift between them? It stops being about camps or philosophies—centralized vs decentralized—and starts being about resilience. Adaptability. Survivability. Malleability. The real stuff that makes or breaks systems under pressure.

What if the real innovation is not centralization vs decentralization, but the ability to shift between them? Centralized vs decentralized is the smartest architectures we can shift. Today on the show we learn why flexibility is key to resilient system and identity design.

Welcome to A Digital Identity Digest, an audio companion to my weekly blog. This podcast provides summaries of timely identity policy, AI, and internet topics, about what’s changing and why it matters. Thank you for listening. Join me each week for new episodes.