This article aims to analyze AlfaFrens, which appears to be consolidating itself as one of the most relevant competitors that FriendTech will have in the Crypto space.

The underlying value proposition is similar.

They come to discover the price that should be assigned to the ability to access or have someone's attention.

This type of attention is usually achieved through different strategies in the real world. One of the most common strategies is organizing events where we can listen to that person, or even have private meetings with them if we access the event with some sort of special pass. Depending on the public demand for that person, we will find individuals whose access is so sought after that it is almost impossible to obtain, and others who, on the contrary, will be completely available for access.

This does not mean that, regardless of the demand, the person in question may want to limit their availability or spend a lot of time being accessible. Ultimately, we are talking about supply (what a person is willing to dedicate of their time to share) and demand (what your attention is demanded for).

In the end, when we take on a job, we are reaching an agreement to give our attention in a regular manner. We can also offer our services on a one-off basis, such as consultations or classes.

However, until now there were no market mechanisms that could find a real-time price for that attention for anyone. FriendTech is one of the first applications to explore this mechanism

In this space, AlfaFrens enters into competition with FriendTech. This area seems poised to establish itself as a way to monetize especially the attention of influential people on social media.

The question we will try to answer in this initial overview is what are the differences between both projects and what are their advantages and disadvantages

Price of the Service

• Friend Tech: The price of this service is algorithmically programmed with the following bonding curve. We assume that this design aims to limit the maximum number of users to a number that is manageable for the person to provide close attention to. This price is for the purchase of a key, which only needs to be made once.

• AlfaFrens: In AlfaFrens, there are currently three possible prices: 500 DEGEN, 1000 DEGEN, or 1500 DEGEN per month, which currently equate to 15 Dollars, 30 Dollars, or 45 Dollars as a monthly fee for access.

These mechanisms currently seem inflexible, but it is possible that we will see them allowing more options in the future. In any case, there is a significant initial difference in this approach, which is the fact that one is a one-time payment, while the other alternative is a monthly payment. Price discovery can occur in both cases but in different ways. In the first, the price directly responds to the supply and demand for attention, behaving like a stock, while in the second, the owner can change the prices, although they remain fixed once the user has made a purchase.

In this sense, the mechanism of FriendTech develops the price discovery dynamics much better and creates a kind of quotation that becomes an asset. AlfaFrens does not develop this mechanism in the pricing of the service. However, it also implements a certain level of speculation, which we will discuss now

Income from Attention

• FriendTech: The revenues in FriendTech depend on the transactions made from the keys purchased for the rooms. This type of profit has been really explosive when the market begins to seek the price of a room and with the initial purchases. However, once this price finds its equilibrium, these purchases become very marginal, mainly because the prices tend to become very high. Users who value this attention do not sell, and the entry price for new users becomes inaccessible, leading to minimal transactionality, which eventually brings the revenues to a minimum, making it unsustainable to continue devoting time to these channels.

• AlfaFrens: In the case of AlfaFrens, since it is a subscription, the initial income of the influencer is not as explosive, but it does generate recurring revenue that can also be tracked in real time. If sustained, this would indeed allow for sustainable dedication to these channels. In this case, these influencers earn 30% of the revenue from these subscriptions, which helps to create an ecosystem that incentivizes speculation on the development of these influencers within the network to capture the remaining 70% of these revenues.

In this sense, the design of AlfaFrens seems much more sustainable for generating income derived from dedicating attention to a group of people. It is true that, as currently designed, the groups in FriendTech are more exclusive than those in AlfaFrens, where we already see many more subscribers. This is an important difference, although in AlfaFrens the channel manager could raise the prices to seek that exclusivity. However, with the current numbers, it seems that the groups in AlfaFrens will have less personalized attention due to their size. Nonetheless, it is true that not all users in the groups always require attention. Many of them value being able to listen to the reflections of that person

Income from Speculation

These ecosystems have also been driven by purely speculative demand. That is, by agents who only wanted to take advantage of the appreciation of access prices to these groups.

• FriendTech: FriendTech developed explosive trading on all the keys for these rooms. However, high commissions and slippages have significantly limited the ability to profit from this type of economic activity. Significant appreciations are needed to make a successful trade. The most profitable strategy was to identify profiles that were created early on to sell the keys later. But once the prices really settle, the trading opportunities nearly disappear. This has caused speculative demand to collapse.

• AlfaFrens: The model developed by AlfaFrens is still being tested, but it essentially revolves around ALFA, the token that can be obtained through subscriptions. These ALFAs will be capable of capturing 70% of the subscription revenue from each person. Therefore, speculative demand will aim to acquire as many ALFAs as possible, since owning 100% of ALFA allows one to capture 100% of the revenues from all channels. However, another important decision will be where to place or stake the ALFA. Since each channel will distribute 70% of its income among the ALFA that has been deposited, this creates a complex model because currently, ALFA is highly inflationary, making it difficult to analyze what the best strategies will be. By requiring payment for subscriptions to acquire ALFA, this generates a virtuous cycle that can greatly benefit all those who are selling their attention.

Conclusions

It is still early; we have not been using this application for more than a day. This new model from AlfaFrens is truly interesting. The incentive models of these services, coupled with the ability to introduce speculative demand, make them explosive

We believe these models can definitely propel the Attention Economy to a level we have never seen before