a16z Podcast: The New Fan Club—Creators, Fans, and the Power of Markets (& Crypto) | Andreessen Horowitz

Back when I started Mediachain in 2014, the idea that any creator would be able to mint their own token and have a trade on a 24/7 global marketplace was kind of unfathomable because Ethereum didn’t exist at that time. And so in order to create a digital token, you have to bootstrap an entire network of miners, like Bitcoin had done, and that was t... See more

We’re going from crowdsourcing code to crowdsourcing content and products that people create on internet platforms to crowdsourcing the actual operations of these internet platforms directly from users

I think this is much more subtle, where you actually really start to work with creators who are stuck in this, kind of, halfway state where they have these enormous audiences, but they don’t know how to monetize because they don’t have the right tool.

The move to independent direct fan-audience relationship, I think, is naturally going to evolve to one that is more financial in nature, where you’re not just backing a creator just simply to get access but also for potential upside. And that may sound, initially, a little bit off, right, because profit maximization is not the sole reason you want ... See more

So crypto enables creators to bypass gatekeepers.

In the post-social media era, subscription and co-operative models will aim to create places for communities to become more aligned, sustainable, and intentional.

They can earn a similar kind of ownership stake in the product or service that they’re building, but they can do so without the friction of the legacy realm, without lawyers papering contracts.

no one has put them together in an aesthetic and experience, in a UX that feels right.

And in exchange for the work that these users are doing, they’re earning an actual ownership stake in the platform itself.

And that’s a pretty exciting idea because it means that creators on the internet, everyday people who use internet products and services, will be able to earn more of the value that they contribute to those products. That’s because cryptocurrencies make it possible to distribute that value at internet scale instantly, to anyone, anywhere in the wor... See more