Status Traps: Learning from Web2 Social Networks - a16z crypto

For a network, one way to make for a good newcomer experience is to have a “ranked” experience where they are exposed to or interact with a subset of the entire graph. For example, a sub-reddit instead of everyone competing with everyone else on Reddit.

Reset or decay status indicators: One aggressive measure to battle status concentrations is to have every status indicator decay over time – a deflationary measure for your status indicators.For example, karma that decays the more you stay away from the network or losing followers over time (especially if you have gained a lot of followers from bei... See more

One very common pitfall for naive implementations of discovery, ranking or status is to inadvertently stop newcomers from “breaking in”.Any social experience will typically have attention or display mechanisms that need to take relative status into account. A naive implementation of a “suggestions” feed or a “top users” might be to rank content bas... See more