The promised land of the singing frog

Marketplaces win if they can more cheaply attract demand/supply then their competitors and are then able to extract the most value possible from the network without increasing churn. Upwork did this via the press. Fiverr did it via viral growth loops. Braintrust does it with crypto.

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.

Will all marketplaces become decentralized, issue tokens, and enable users to participate in governance? Maximally extractive folks will be disrupted first. Airbnb looks the same in 10 years because they provide as much value as they extract. But people hate Upwork so there is a strong incentive to disintermediate. Knowledge work marketplaces are s... See more