The internet as we know it is now over 30 years old, and author John Battelle says we must get over the “extraordinary inertia” of the system we’ve built. He would know: As a founder of WIRED Magazine and as an entrepreneur himself, John’s been tracking and writing about the evolution of technology and its impact on society for a long time.

In addition to co-founding WIRED, Battelle launched Web 2.0 Summit conferences, Federated Media Publishing, The Industry Standard, and The Recount. He’s written a book called “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules” and is now working on a new book about a better Internet.

What exactly is the difference between what he calls “the internet that we have and the one that we deserve”? Why are we now at an inflection point? Can we still fix the system? How would monetization work in this world?

These are the questions tackled in today’s episode of Dot Social, the first podcast to explore the world of decentralized social media. Each episode, host (and Flipboard co-founder and CEO) Mike McCue talks to a leader in this movement; someone who sees the Fediverse’s tremendous potential and understands that this could be a significant shift for the internet.