Dirt: Are we post-platform?

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?

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

Enthusiasts of web3 emphasize that it is migratory in nature.

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.

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

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.

Nothing about the Internet is fixed, permanent, or inevitable. It is malleable, shape-shifting, and constantly evolving.

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

In web2, basically anyone who posts any form of content surrenders it to a continuous feedback loop wherein the platform not only owns and controls your data—it also earns a vast majority of the revenue from what you’ve created.