Ideas I want to write about

We no longer lack tools for creating content. When content production and distribution is infinite, the important aspect is its primary function in crafting and proliferating culture*.* In other words, the value of content today comes primarily from its use in cultural production.

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.

Blackbird Pay offers restaurants a flat 2% fee on payments , versus an industry average of 3-4%.

Payments is how Blackbird will make the majority of its revenue. Ben explained that, in the short-term, they’ll lose money on some transactions (when users choose to pay with credit card and Blackbird eats those fees), and make money on others (when the... See more

Late last year, I wrote that more great entrepreneurs would build products onchain as the trade-offs for doing so shrunk. Blackbird is the best example of that thesis that I’ve seen. It’s an app I’d use whether it was onchain or off, and a tool that restaurants use even if they’ve never heard of crypto, even if they don’t particularly like crypto, ... See more

By 2028 NFTs will be analogous to the United States’ huge underground salt caverns that store crude oil reserves. Mountains of financial, health, education, social, gaming & behavioral data will be widely accessible. Some individuals (<10% of the United States population) will be running their own local models on a tapestry of on-chain &... See more

Analogizing the current era in tech with the recent, software-dominated era is a mistake.

A much better analogy would be the Second Industrial Revolution in America, the Gilded Age when entrepreneurs built businesses using every new technological tool at their disposal to pull humanity to a new level of prosperity and became unbelievably rich in th... See more

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

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

In a luxury media landscape, the traditional roles of creator, curator, and consumer are being redefined. Artists are not just creators but are now stewards of cultural communities, leveraging their individual legitimacy to direct communal conversations and brands. In the Age of Average, where mediocre content is abundant, creators become artisans ... See more