Words With Web 3’s King: An Interview With Chris Dixon

he digital world gets subordinating prefixes like the “e” in email and ecommerce, the physical world is called the “real world,” and so on. You see this in how digital innovations like social media were dismissed as toys for so many years. It’s pretty obvious today that social media is driving global politics, business, and culture — but people did... See more

The other big factor for me is, when I start to get interested in a topic, I try to go talk to the smartest enthusiasts and smartest critics. Sometimes as you do this you discover the critics are really well informed and have strong arguments. Other times you discover the opposite. I specifically decided to devote my career to crypto/web3 a few yea... See more

Historically, with really major tech breakthroughs, in the first few decades you get first-order effects. The first order effect of the automobile was getting you from one place to another faster. But the really profound things happened in the next phase from second-order effects: suburbs, commuting, highways, trucking, fast food and big box retail... See more

I also try to pay close attention to my media diet. I find it’s much easier to control the inputs vs how you process those inputs. I studiously avoid corporate media and other secondary sources and get almost all my news from primary sources: one-on-one conversations, Twitter and Substack, video interviews, financial reports, technical papers, prim... See more

So to answer your question: it’s early. We are barely a decade into the modern era. The most popular applications are early and, I would argue, fundamentally flawed. Take Twitter, which is probably the most visible example of both the good and bad of the modern internet. On the good side: I can look down on my phone and see the most interesting tho... See more

Advertising at its core is a market for attention. In any future version of the internet, I’d expect markets for attention to pop up. It’s a natural barter between one party with a surplus of attention and another party with a deficit. It particularly makes sense for direct response advertising. An auction for purchasing intent is a very good way t... See more

A few numbers. Online advertising averages 1% of US GDP — roughly $200B out of a $20T economy— important, but not critical. For context the US video game business is about $65B, with about $20B coming from virtual goods. I think with new web3 business models we could easily 10x the virtual goods economy. So I don’t see why replacing advertising wit... See more

The other obvious problem with today’s internet is the economic structure. Chris Anderson wrote a famous essay called “The Long Tail” back in 2004 that predicted the internet would make media businesses less hit-driven and improve the economics for niche creative people. He was right in one sense: the internet created many more niche communities an... See more

Let’s talk about advertising. First, it’s helpful to distinguish two types of advertising: direct response and brand advertising. Direct response is advertising where the user has already indicated some purchasing intent that the ad simply tries to satisfy. You have a lawnmower shop in Newark and are looking for new customers; a person in Newark ty... See more