Variant's first newsletter just dropped with a strong take from @li that web3 social networks with asset-first approaches (building for users' desire for profit) will succeed over ideology-first approaches (building for users' values + ideals): variantnewsletter.com/p/issue-1-thinking-about-web3-social. wdyt?
Short-term, obviously. Long-term, no. But maybe short term allows for enough critical mass, but then a transition to values and ideals must occur. And that might be fatal.
Be skeptical of people talking about web3 social networks who don’t use web3 social networks ;)
i get 404 http://variantnewsletter.com/p/issue-1-thinking-about-web3-social is this right link? i tried on two browsers
I don't thinks it's profit or ideology that will sustain a social network, decentralized or not It's community & value creation Value is more than money 💸 It's content, connection and collaboration, among other things
Would you sort Farcaster in 2nd category? Since doesn’t seem to fit 1st (no token, NFT). Lens could be both 1 & 2
people use social networks for one or more of these three reasons - status, belonging or entertainment i don't think assets or ideology are a useful frame to think about why people want to be social
variant passed on us bc they’re idiots
I do my best to not criticize individual writing because I know it's brutal to create something - for my part I didn't get much new out of this I also have seen this "Lens creators getting big bucks" (which we chatted about in the Unlonely stream) meme proliferate which I just think is misinformed or v disingenuous
I wish for the complete opposite. Small circles of frens / people that share interests, openly share updates & genuinely reply every now and then. That said, I believe there will be a few global networks, mainly for discovery & entertainment, aside many smaller, personalized networks - hopefully all on web 3 rails.
I think it's wrong and I'll just leave a short story about the classic Answer2Earn project that lost to Answer2GetStatus Quora
Not sure that I agree with users wanting profit, but I surely do agree with a more fair compensation on UGC, specially content creators Social media is a game of content, and where you consume it first Leading projects need to crack that piece
related - opposing take from david phelps (jokedao) https://twitter.com/divine_economy/status/1661856810502873089
The financial aspect of Web3 is way overblown imho. The real big deal is permissionless innovation that doesn’t look like much at first, but it’s compounding over time and leads to ecosystems that no closed product can compete with. It’s like AOL vs the internets
i can see her pov, but imo that’s not the actual sentiment at all. the use case for digital ownership, sure, but monetization via digital ownership isn’t the driving factor. ideology and values will always be at the forefront. an asset-first platform is a marketplace, not a social community lol
