Credible Exit is the ability to leave a platform or service without losing access to your data, identity, or connections, ensuring full user control and portability.
This substack post by Gordon Brander is a good introduction to the topic.
Imagine you’ve built a social profile on a platform. Over time, you start noticing that some of your posts are being restricted or your content is no longer being promoted. You don’t want to lose everything you’ve built—your posts, connections, or even your online identity. This is where Credible Exit comes into play. It ensures that you can leave a platform without losing what’s yours, giving you true control over your online presence.
It is also important for the credible exit to be feasible, as in a measure of cost, meaning the cost of exit should be within the order of magnitude of making an exit economically efficient.
Why Credible Exit is Important
Today, most platforms hold your data hostage. They make it difficult to leave, and if you do leave, you often lose all your posts, connections, and your ability to stay visible. This is the result of centralized control—a few big platforms deciding what can be shared and who gets to see it. They can censor you or limit your access without warning.
Here are some of the best examples of Credible Exit in practice:
- Domain Name System (DNS): DNS is a classic example of a system that allows for a credible exit. If you no longer want your domain hosted with one provider, you can transfer it to another without losing control over your domain name.
- Email Protocols (IMAP/SMTP): Email is another example. Users can change email providers while keeping the same email address, ensuring they don’t lose their communication history or contacts.
- Bitcoin Wallets: Bitcoin wallets offer credible exit by allowing users to export private keys and import them into another wallet provider, retaining full control over their funds and transactions.
Credible Exit is a fundamental principle that ensures users are never locked in. It means having the freedom to move your data, identity, and content to a new service without losing anything. It gives you leverage, making sure that platforms compete for your trust rather than taking it for granted.
How Pubky Makes Credible Exit Possible
In Pubky, Credible Exit is not just an idea—it’s built into the architecture. Pubky combines decentralized routing and identity with flexible, user-controlled hosting to make sure you’re always in charge.
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Trusted Servers with a Safety Net: When you join Pubky, you can use a trusted server to host your data. These servers are there to provide convenience, but you’re never stuck. If the server changes its policies or you simply want to move, Pubky allows you to seamlessly migrate your data to another server without any loss of content or followers.
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Decentralized Identity: With Pubky, your identity is not tied to any one server. You use self-issued public keys that are recognized across the network. This means you can change where your data is hosted without losing your identity or connections.
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Data Portability: Pubky’s design ensures that all of your data can be easily exported and imported between servers. This keeps your content intact and visible, regardless of where it’s hosted.
NOTE: During Pubky’s initial bootstrapping phase, credible exit may not be practically possible until more homeserver providers join. Synonym is building tools to make it easy for businesses and users to self-host.
Important Aspects of Credible Exit
- Protocols: The foundation of credible exit, enabling communication and data transfer between systems.
- Data Importance: Differentiating between basic data (content created by users) and generated data (interactions, likes, comments), which may require different approaches for exit.
- Dimensions of Credible Exit: Including the ability to export data, sync data across platforms, use data in useful formats, and store data in local files.
Challenges and Considerations
- Static Exports: While GDPR regulations allow for data exports, the static nature of these exports can limit their utility for ongoing use.
- Data Formats: The importance of using common, useful formats for data to ensure it can be utilized elsewhere.
- Interoperability: The potential for multiple apps to share data through permissionless APIs, enhancing broad interoperability.
Summary
Credible Exit is about freedom and control. It ensures that you’re never at the mercy of a single platform or server. With Pubky, you get the convenience of using trusted servers while always having an exit strategy—one that guarantees you keep everything you’ve built online. This is the foundation of a more open, user-first web, where platforms must earn your trust rather than exploit it.