Why Scaling Creator Monetization Could Tip Crypto Mass Adoption
Let’s be real for a moment, a lot of people would still call crypto a bit “weird”. Even if Bitcoin has now reached the level of ubiquity that US presidential candidates are promising to back the dollar with the digital currency if elected (The Street), in the eyes of society through the lens of the mainstream media, crypto is a route to payments and savings. At the same time, the underlying technology remains woefully misunderstood.
It’s understandable. The idea of decentralization, or the transfer of supervision and decision-making from a centralized association (individual, corporation, or group of people) to a dispersed network (Blockchain Council), is still hard to comprehend. This is a natural reaction to a technological development that goes against the centralized systems that are so entrenched in our history. Think of how governments are run, corporations are led, or even the way that applications are created and built, these all follow the same hierarchical kind of structure.
It’s far easier to ignite imaginations with tokens as a kind of casino where anyone has the chance to become a millionaire. Is this gold rush frenzy the route to crypto mass adoption? Some might say yes, although they will disappear just as quickly when price volatility sends token values tumbling, because let’s face it, speculative market cycles are not sustainable. The token ecosystem needs decentralized applications that provide brilliant and much-needed use cases to sustain in the long run. Social platforms that empower creator monetization are arguably one of the most scalable and compelling.
When you control your content, you can choose how to monetize it
Anyone in the Web2 space who uses the internet and interacts with digital products (so basically, everyone) knows that it is built on the principle that users download apps that require them to consent to the application’s terms and conditions. This act of consenting gave away many rights, but generally speaking most of us did not care, or rather we did not have the time to scour through 40 pages of legalese.
We willfully gave up our data en masse, and the platforms wilfully monetized it. The very data and content we created that brought attention and engagement to the platforms, was not ours to monetize. Nor were the brand and product recommendations we openly shared online, even if these provided the purest and most valuable kind of marketing any brand could wish to see. Only influencers that had amalgamated enough of a reach could hope to monetize their content, even if the platforms still owned it.
This fundamental flaw in Web2 paved the way for decentralized applications in Web3 to develop use cases that essentially rebalanced the value exchange. Over the last years in the Web3 space, there has been a rise in decentralized apps that give users the choice to sell their data and get fairly compensated. Some examples are:
Move-to-earn: think tokens like SWEAT from Sweatcoin;
Learn-to-earn: think English-language learning platform LetMeSpeak;
And create-to-earn: think of creator monetization using the WOM Token on social platforms such as BULLZ.
These are all exciting real world use cases with the potential to tip increasing numbers of users into crypto.
The use case for decentralized social applications
Web3 social is a new paradigm in the world of social media, characterized by decentralization, transparency, and user empowerment. Unlike traditional Web2 social platforms, where the business model is built on monetizing user data through targeted advertising, Web3 social is built on principles of privacy and user sovereignty. The key idea behind Web3 social is to give users control over their own data and to enable them to monetize their content and social interactions without relying on centralized platforms.
Scaling the creation of decentralized applications that help creators monetize their content, creativity, community, followers, ambassadorship, and recommendations has a major mass appeal – just think of the billions of Web2 social media users already doing this and now setting their sights on the growing creator economy. Creators want to be able to earn money for the value they bring to brands and advertisers, and they want to do it in a way that is authentic, transparent, and aligned with their interests.
Tipping mass adoption
For decentralized social applications to tip crypto mass adoption they need to provide the consumer-friendly infrastructure and tools for creators to monetize their content effectively. This means creating new models for value exchange, such as social tokens or other forms of decentralized finance, that enable creators to monetize their content directly from their audience. It also means creating protocols and technologies that help to align the interests of all stakeholders in the ecosystem – so that the platform, the creator, and the advertiser all have the incentive to get on board and tip the scales of adoption.