Ideas I want to write about

I did ask Ben what he thinks the experience will be like in a couple years as the network scales. Here’s what he described:

You open the Blackbird app. Based on what it knows about you, where you are, and any specific queries you make, it will suggest two or three places nearby. That will be the last experience you have with the tech. You’ll just w... See more

Until last year, launching an onchain subscription was difficult, as NFTs and ERC20s had no concept of time embedded within them. Instead, they offered one-time, discrete value transfer between buyers and sellers.

Token allowances and streaming escrow contracts are one solution to this problem, but they are complex and difficult to use.

We made STP t... See more

Fred Wilson pointed out that being onchain opens up the opportunity to build an AmEx-like loyalty program where all the loyalty points are onchain.

“$FLY is like a stablecoin. It’s not something like Bitcoin where you buy it and hope it goes to $100k,” he said. “But the idea of taking loyalty points onchain is a big deal.”

Specifically, it will all... See more

The subscription access business model results in a creator’s dilemma. If their best content is paywalled, how will they demonstrate the value of subscribing to new readers? If their best content is paywalled, subscribers have no way of accurately assessing the quality of a creator’s work.

It’s not that crypto has actually enabled the financialization of everything, but rather it’s removed friction in places where immense demand for financialization exists.

If Blackbird succeeds, it will succeed because it builds a product that helps restaurants in the ways that they care about. The technology under the hood is a means, not an end.

While memberships were restaurant-specific, $FLY would be a “pan-industry loyalty currency.” Every time you check in at Gertie, for example, you might receive 1,000 $FLY or 5,000 $FLY. Restaurants might incentivize certain behaviors – checking in at times that are typically slow – with greater $FLY rewards. So each time you check in at a specific r... See more

The key insight here is that the "regular" experience is a form of capital – social capital , to be precise. It's valuable to both the restaurant (which benefits from repeat business and word-of-mouth marketing) and the customer (who enjoys better service and status). However, this capital has traditionally been illiquid and non-transferable. You c... See more

Blackbird is the first app I’ve used that’s onchain but doesn’t feel like it is. It feels like a restaurant app. I use it to discover places to eat, and to earn loyalty for eating there. Starting today, I’ll be able to use it to pay my tab — automatically, without getting the check — using credit card, debit card, or Blackbird’s $FLY token.

Toolmakers operate at the very bleeding edge, coming up with brand new science and technology, with a primary focus on the science and technology themselves.

Techno-Industrials start with the challenge they want to solve, and use every tool at their disposal, including some at the cutting edge and even some that they have to create themselves, to s... See more