The thesis of a Web3 social media being fundamentally better than a Web2 social media stems from the new possibility enabled by blockchain technologies for users to truly own their identity, data and monetisation.
Here I will describe a future of Web3 social media that is, I hope, exciting for most.
Are Web2 social medias evil?
I actually don’t believe Web2 social medias like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok are as evil as described by some.
I still vividly remember the first time I used Facebook. It was 2009, I was a year 10 student in China, Facebook wasn’t even banned in China yet. I logged into Facebook for the first time and within minutes, just by remembering the first name of a German teacher who taught English at my school, I was able to get in touch with him again from across the globe. I was mind-blown. This was the first cross country, cross continent, cross culture, cross nationality, cross timezone communication I’ve ever had with someone who I thought I’d never meet again. The ability of a social media on the internet to instantly connect people from anywhere in the world did something to my hippocampus and left an enduring memory on that young brain.
For many years since then, Facebook was a very positive influence in my life. As a Chinese student doing year 11 in Australia, Facebook became the main place where I conducted my cultural studies and connected with friends from diverse backgrounds. It became a necessity, it was fascinating, it was joyful to use. It seemed everyone loved Facebook, and everyone was on Facebook.
13 years have passed. Facebook has added many new features but the main ones are still the same. For a long time its mission statement was ‘to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected’, and the current one is ‘to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together’. These statements are not that different either. So how did Facebook go from something a lot of people loved, to something always engulfed in controversies?
In my view the reason is that Facebook owns so many identities, so much data, and so much power over monetisation that it is biting more than it can chew. Such immense responsibilities are impossible for any single entity to properly handle at all times. So every now and then, shit happens, and Facebook, sometimes Mark Zuckerberg, takes all the blame. In a world where democracy is largely preferred, we have a king who can exercise enormous control over people’s digital lives. Even the wisest and kindest king would find it difficult to justify such power in the context of a democratic society.
The innate network effect that comes with any popular social media platform, will always inflate this power. The Web2 internet building blocks and corporate structures will always produce such centralising force. Therefore we have seen and will continue to see similar stories like Facebook. A startup begins with a dream to change the world for the better, but the closer it gets to realising this dream, the more obscured the dream becomes. To break the cycle, things must change at the base layer.
Hello blockchain, hello Web3.
Things are changing at the base layer.
To save myself a thousand words explaining what a blockchain is, I always recommend people to read the Bitcoin whitepaper and the Ethereum whitepaper. They are more philosophical than technical and any curious mind should be able to digest.
In a nutshell, for the first time in the history of the internet, you can truly own your identity in the form of a wallet address which no one else can tamper with without your approval. You can truly own your data in the form of transactions on the blockchain which are immutable. You can truly own your monetisation in the form of smart contracts which you can create, copy, compose, utilise without asking for anyone’s permission. You can live a digital life with you in control, with you at the centre, with total freedom.
Your digital life on the blockchain can provide for you in real life. You don’t need a million followers. All you need are a thousand true fans.
Web3 social media, the promise and the possibilities.
On a typical Web2 social media, the user journey begins with you establishing an identity by creating a username and a password or by logging in with your Gmail or Facebook account. The platform owns that identity. This identity representing you then goes on to produce content that is shared and seen by your network. Content is essentially streams of data which is also owned by the platform. Valuable content in turn attracts more users, whose attention have advertising value, and with enough data, valuable insights can be drawn. The platform has the sole discretion over how such value is monetised, and the platform is often the sole financial beneficiary.
A Web3 social media returns the ownership of identity, data and monetisation back to the users themselves, giving more power to creators and keeping less power with the platform. This change in ownership is assumed by design, and thus a promise that is common across all Web3 social media platforms. Some call this ‘can’t be evil’, comparing with Google’s famous ‘don’t be evil’. Some people have realised the potential opportunities and are starting to build Web3 alternatives, however there are many pitfalls. I explored some in the Twitter thread below.
The real implication of the promised change in ownership of identity, data and monetisation are a chance to completely rethink from the ground up, how a Web3 social media should look like. The new possibilities can create existential threats to Web2 social media incumbents. Here are some ideas I want to share with you.
1. Hundreds of apps working in concert, for you.
Since identity and data are no longer controlled by siloed entities but by you. You’ll probably want to maximise their utility. I will make a bold prediction that instead of you limiting access to your data, you will open up your data to more apps because of the convenience and value they provide. The key difference is you will be fully aware of the accesses you are granting and the associated data, rather than being in the dark about what data the platforms have about you, how they are collecting it and how the data is being used.
Since all apps will be accessing the same open data you put on the blockchain, they will compete on doing the best analysis of your data to provide the best possible service. You will no longer be limited to any single app as you carry your identity with you in the form of a wallet address to any app. Apps will not only be interoperable, but working together to produce more data which benefit each other. The transparent data analytics and services provided by one app will be studied by another app to provide even better services. Eventually apps will form the mutualism type of symbiotic relationship with each other where they live off the data, analytics and services produced by each other. Their level of understanding about you will be unmatched by any existing Web2 social media. Hundreds of apps will work in concert, to provide the best possible services, tailored to you.
2. Providing liquidity to the attention you attract.
Your social media personal page is your digital real estate. The more traffic a piece of real estate attracts the more valuable it becomes. Real estate with very little traffic can still be quite valuable, so should digital real estate. This value on Web2 social medias are accrued to the platforms by default, due to the lack of a contractual yet dynamic way of revenue sharing. It is simply impossible for Facebook to sign contracts with each of its billions of users, not to mention updating the contractual terms periodically.
This is now possible with NFTs and smart contracts. Your digital real estate can be easily and precisely tokenised with NFTs. When someone wants to use your digital space for purposes including but not limited to advertising, they will do so in the form of renting your NFT. Since NFTs can be traded on secondary marketplaces permissionlessly, digital space NFTs will provide liquidity to the attention you attract. You will also enter into a smart contract with the Web3 social media which automatically manages revenue sharing. The social media platform will be akin to a property manager, if you are not satisfied with the services or pricing, you are free to find another manager.
3. A social media? A storefront!
Most people like shopping in stores, yet most people hate online ads. Ads are supposed to help people shop more easily, so why is this the case?
This is because when you shop in a store, you are in control of your browsing. You are consciously paying more attention to items that interest you, and unconsciously ignoring everything that doesn’t. This results in an overall pleasant experience with you seeing interesting things. However on social media, your purpose is to look at meaningful content, and ads often get in the way. The small screen makes it much harder to unconsciously ignore things, as you have to consciously scroll through each piece of content.
Does this mean ads on social media will always lead to a bad user experience? Not necessarily. Most of us have benefited from the convenience of online shopping, and have welcomed such invention. So the problem lies not with ads trying to get us to shop online, but with ads we are not interested in. If we can find a way for ads to really improve our shopping experience, it could produce a net positive user experience.
This is now possible given the mutualism relationship between apps mentioned above, and the composability and ease of execution of smart contracts. Imagine an instance where Alex liked Bob’s Bored Ape story on Web3 Instagram, and Bob is commenting his interest on Cathy’s post about selling her CryptoPunk on Web3 Twitter, and Cathy is bidding for ENS Cathy.eth owned by Alex on Web3 eBay. The three Web3 apps work in concert to realise that Alex wants Bob’s Bored Ape, Bob wants Cathy’s CryptoPunk, and Cathy wants Alex’s Cathy.eth. Each app then pops up a three-way trade request simultaneously to Alex, Bob and Cathy, they each reviews and signs the request. The items are exchanged almost instantly just when they desired them the most. Three happy shoppers!
This example demonstrates that a Web3 social media can become one’s favourite storefront. App mutualism has huge potential to accurately and proactively provide us with what we want, and wallet address based identities together with smart contracts can execute complex transactions with such ease.
The future is exciting.
I hope you are as excited as I am about the future of Web3 social media. One block at a time, we are building and getting closer to a Web3 future each day.
LFG.