This Week in Web3: Friday, July 29, 2022
Your definition of community is wrong, Solana opens a retail store, BFF, announces a new council for belonging, can innovation trump a bear market, and technology vs nation states
Hi friends,
This week I had the opportunity to participate in a debate about communities, led by Mathew Sweezey, who is the co-founder of Salesforce’s Web3 Lab.
The original provocation was that just because I bought your NFT, doesn’t mean I want to be part of a community, join your Discord or do anything other than just own and appreciate the intrinsic value of the art.
Understandably, this brought up the question of what even is a community, are we using the term incorrectly or perhaps confusingly when we talk about Web3?
Let’s start with what communities are not, especially when it comes to how so many projects or brands talk about them. Communities are not a collection of customers or fans, they are not a business or organization, they are not people who attend an event and they are not defined by a group of people who exist in proximity to each other based on their geography.
The moment that these can become a community is determined by a number of important factors, including whether members contribute to, or benefit from an exchange of value between members. This is not pre-determined by the owner, organizer, or facilitator of the community, it is self-directed or actualized by the members themselves.
Fans of the Yankees feel a deep connection with their community, defined by their participation in ritualistic behaviors with other fans, they chant, wear the uniform and play fantasy baseball with each other etc. These are loose examples of value exchange, but nonetheless, they are important. However, if I buy a ticket to a game, turn up, watch for a couple of hours and leave, this does not automatically make me part of that community. I am not a fan of the Yankees, I just happened to have attended a single game.
So, what are some of the other parameters that define community? Based on our debate this week we agreed that purpose, shared values, and in the world of Web3, member ownership is important. This is talked about a great deal in Web3, in fact, Chris Dixon believes this is one of the single most important factors that will define the next era of the Internet.
Ownership in communities is interesting. It has the potential to change the dynamic in ways we’ve not seen. Will members act differently when the incentives to join and participate change? How will ownership impact advocacy and loyalty? What if ownership was also tied to other parameters that were written into smart contracts, which then in turn introduce autonomous ways to decide who gets to stay in the community based on their participation? Could your membership burn because you’re too passive in your involvement?
Whether you add ownership as a new parameter, along with purpose, shared values and the exchange of value between members, or not, one thing has become abundantly clear to me this week, almost every time you see the word community the context of Web3, there is a very strong chance that it is being used incorrectly. Prove me wrong!
Thanks to Sweezey for making this such a fun debate!
On to this week’s digest, enjoy, and let me know what you think in the comments!
LFG!
TL;DR
VC fund Variant raises $450M, doubles down on Web3 amid ‘crypto winter’
Solana Set to Open IRL Retail Store and Web3 'Embassy' in New York
Web3 Community BFF Announces Belonging And Mattering Council And Web3 Pledge
8 Reasons Why Access to Your NFT Enabled Community is a Weak Idea, by Mathew Sweezey (Via LinkedIn)
Balaji Srinivasan on the Network State and How to Start a New Country
News we’re following
VC fund Variant raises $450M, doubles down on Web3 amid ‘crypto winter’
Each “crypto winter” is different from the last, but every winter—or what non-crypto people would call a bear market—has something in common: It gives rise to a new surge of innovation.
That’s why Variant, an early stage crypto-focused fund, sees great opportunity in the current state of things, its co-founders Jesse Walden and Li Jin tell Fortune.
Solana Set to Open IRL Retail Store and Web3 'Embassy' in New York
A Solana-themed store is set to open its doors in New York City. Called Solana Spaces, the new store is located in Hudson Yards and is being launched in collaboration with the Solana Foundation, the organization behind the eponymous blockchain network.
Web3 Community BFF Announces Belonging And Mattering Council And Web3 Pledge
Today, BFF, an open-access community with a mission to help women and non-binary people get educated, connected, and empowered in web3, proudly announces the Belonging and Mattering Council (BMC) and web3 pledge as part of its ongoing commitment to uplift and spotlight opportunities for underrepresented communities in collaboration with multicultural multimedia communications agency Skai Blue Media.
Things we’re reading
8 Reasons Why Access to Your NFT Enabled Community is a Weak Idea, by Mathew Sweezey (Via LinkedIn)
Every #NFT project talks about access to communities but let's be real, that's weak utility. Here are 8 reasons why 👇
1 - Experience is critical. Have you been in Discord? Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other communities already exist. The UX/UI is better than discord, and they are FREE! Why do your customers need a closed community, on a new app, that's a bad experience, that they have to pay for? They don't!
2 - Communities don't run themselves. They take a massive amount of moderation, and management. So if you are not constantly investing in the community it will fail.
Can Innovation Trump a Bear Market? Here’s What We Know
On April 18th, 2020, when business and consumer morale were low at the height of the pandemic, tech titan Marc Andreessen published a blog post whose title deployed four poignant words: It’s time to build. The corresponding article criticized the United States for its poor preparation for a worldwide pandemic, chalking it up to the country’s lack of desire to “build” the infrastructure and physical footprints needed to withstand such a sudden black swan event. The post ends by encouraging all readers to build because it’s the only way to “honor the legacy of our forefathers and foremothers and to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren.”
Technology vs. the nation-state
In the world of crypto and Web3, manifestos are the new pitch decks, and a former Coinbase executive has just dropped the mother of all techno-political manifestos.
The new politics of technology often come down to tech innovators challenging national systems of oversight built for a different era, or seeking to transcend those national systems altogether.
“The Network State” by Balaji Srinivasan, released online in draft form earlier this month, offers insights into one version of Team Tech’s endgame in these conflicts: gradual replacement of the nation-state with internet-enabled “network states” that begin in the cloud and then start butting into the real world.
Things we’re listening to
web3 with a16z: Policy Principles
A quick overview of principles for thinking about policy, briefly covering topics and recent moves that are top of mind in U.S. crypto regulation -- from stablecoins to NFTs to DAOs more.
Balaji Srinivasan on the Network State and How to Start a New Country
This one is a few weeks old, but totally worth a listen.
Balaji S. Srinivasan — 5-10-Year Predictions, How to Start a New Country, Society-as-a-Service (SaaS), Bitcoin Maximalism, Memetic Warfare, How Prices Are Born, Moral Flippenings, The One Commandment, and The Power of Missionary over Mercenary (#606)
Web3 Breakdowns: Jarrod Dicker: Investing in Passion
This is Eric Golden and my guest today is Jarrod Dicker. Jarrod is a Partner at The Chernin Group, a consumer-focused investment firm, where he invests in Web3, blockchain, and other tech that connects fans with creators. Before TCG, Jarrod was the CEO of Po.et, a decentralized media start-up, and Commercial Chief at the Washington Post. He has spent his career at the intersection of media, technology, and consumer products – which is the focus of our discussion. Please enjoy this conversation with Jarrod Dicker.
Projects we’re into
Lens Protocol is a composable and decentralized social graph, ready for you to build on so you can focus on creating a great experience, not scaling your users.