People are the New Platforms

Or if you like: people become the new platforms. 

And second—at least in theory, if not always practice—the platforms are not much greater than the sum of their users. Because it’s the users who govern the platforms, own its token, and even use platforms to transact in the token.

First, platforms have an opportunity to build an underlying social graph of unique data and then to self-cannibalize by letting other platforms draw on it: the real financial opportunity for every platform, in other words, is to become a protocol that others build on top of.

Platforms’ secret opportunity is in incentivizing collection of this data for users to leverage. This may sound counterintuitive when platforms don’t own users’ data in web3, but there are two underlying points.

But there is a difference. Because: to get users in the first place, platforms have to increasingly airdrop their token that incentivizes users not only to use the platform, but more importantly, grow its long-term value by getting their network to use it as well. No self-respecting platform under the watchful eyes of the SEC would say that they’re... See more

So much for the fat protocol thesis, we might say. The platforms of web3 start to look a lot like the p2p platforms of web2 and web1: the Pipes, the Airbnbs, the Ebays that win markets by capturing liquidity for rare, non-fungible items and services, their strong liquidity moat giving them strong commissions.

And in the longest run, we’ll be able to create versions of ourselves online that are no longer skeuomorphic approximations of our offline selves, but collective creations—selves that may write emails for us based on collective data, perhaps, or even selves that communicate with each other without any need for email at all. Perhaps, ultimately, we’... See more

But more importantly, web3 can let us transcend the limited language of existing platforms by creating more advanced living, breathing identities on-chain. Our data doesn’t need to be limited to our music selections or our conversations with strangers on dating apps. It can include our contributions to building communities in DAOs, to writing artic... See more

On the simplest level, web3 can allow us to “bring our whole selves” to platforms without fear of scrutiny or judgment by aggregating our online data and sharing the parts we find relevant to receive better recommendations and find better opportunities. Web3 enables us to traverse all these spaces and carry this identity—in the form of an address w... See more