Dirt: Are we post-platform?

Platforms have boxed our social lives and creative endeavors into slick, hyper-designed perimeters, guiding users through algorithmically perfect scrolls.

Enthusiasts of web3 emphasize that it is migratory in nature.

platforms have risen to become the monolithic, centrally-managed household names that we are so familiar with—where we comfortably upload our memories and fantasies, our arguments and aspirations.

If our primary urge when we go online is to avoid remaining static, why should our content be siloed within the enclosed walls of a proprietary platform?

Enter: web3, where participants use a wallet application like MetaMask, or Rainbow, to interact directly with the blockchain. Rather than logging into each individual website with an email and password, only to upload your files over again, your wallet acts as your login.

Every new advent of the web is baffling at first. Each comes with its own set of skeuomorphs, utopian aspirations, doubts, and healthy doses of skepticism.

As design theorist Yin Aiwen puts it, “joining a platform today is much like going to a new town; not only do you need to familiarize yourself with the interfacial environment, you also must adapt to a particular culture to communicate, exchange, and so on.”

The “right to leave” is the hallmark of the post-platform era.

The ability to exit with your data intact is a core tenant of web3; web3 turns your data into your personal, programmable property.

Influencers, now a slowly fading cliché in the Internet’s tableau vivant, found success articulating the cult of personality, and marketing themselves as direct-to-consumer-goods. The shift away from this algorithmic surrender can be traced to the macro and micro “creator economies” spawned by the likes of Patreon, Substack, OnlyFans and even Cameo... See more