Yo Harry! Really interesting read, thanks for writing. Obv it's a long piece so apols if I make multiple comments. Hope you don't mind me writing here and feel free to ignore but really keen for a discussion because there's some concepts/ideas that would be great if you could expand on either because a) it helps clarify or b) they are worth healthily challenging.
"But power is starting to shift away from these companies."
- Agree, web3 represents a potential shift from existing tech companies but I don't see the power being then democratised. Power is still centralised, either, in the broadest societal sense, to those technically astute, or to those maintaining the network e.g. mining pools, or to GPU manufacturers, or those with access to cheap energy.
"Entry costs that previously, say 10 years ago, were high are now coming down. Blockchain tech allows you to accepts payments without an intermediary."
- Payments are made without an intermediary but pragmatically speaking, unless fiat currencies are no longer used for real life transactions, exchanges (ie intermediaries) are still necessary. Because of the fx transactions costs and until (if ever possible - which I think we should be really skeptical about) blockchain can scale to meet tx demand, it's not cheaper than 10 years ago.
"But if a small group of individuals can choose to remove your content, their power greatly outweighs the market at large and the free market is not all that free."
- As above, re: centralisation, we've seen market manipulation in web3 by malicious individuals in power.
"There’s still a risk that the network could change in ways that you don’t agree with, but all is not lost because other participants may feel the same way as you, agree to fork the network, and proceed in a different direction to the majority."
- Agree in principle, but there's so many counter examples (Bcash, eth classic etc.) that I don't know if in practice this is true.
"Let’s look at 2 of the largest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea and LooksRare."
- Something to ponder I suppose, but is this not an example of centralisation similar to existing platforms on web2. Discoverability seems to still only be solved via centralised platforms.
"a platform provides services that can’t be found anywhere else"
- I'm not sure I understand this, are you saying that the concept of a platform is unique or all individual platforms are unique?
"They provide a service that can’t be found anywhere else because the NFTs are unique pieces of art that can’t be found anywhere else."
- I dunno man, the tokens are unique, but is the art? Or is the argument that the token itself is art? (meta af haha)
A general point/question about NFTs
- I might be a luddite but I'm really unclear about the utility gained from purchasing an NFT. Granted there are some offline IRL benefits as you mentioned but the vast majority of purchases seemed fueled by speculation.
Yo Harry! Really interesting read, thanks for writing. Obv it's a long piece so apols if I make multiple comments. Hope you don't mind me writing here and feel free to ignore but really keen for a discussion because there's some concepts/ideas that would be great if you could expand on either because a) it helps clarify or b) they are worth healthily challenging.
"But power is starting to shift away from these companies."
- Agree, web3 represents a potential shift from existing tech companies but I don't see the power being then democratised. Power is still centralised, either, in the broadest societal sense, to those technically astute, or to those maintaining the network e.g. mining pools, or to GPU manufacturers, or those with access to cheap energy.
"Entry costs that previously, say 10 years ago, were high are now coming down. Blockchain tech allows you to accepts payments without an intermediary."
- Payments are made without an intermediary but pragmatically speaking, unless fiat currencies are no longer used for real life transactions, exchanges (ie intermediaries) are still necessary. Because of the fx transactions costs and until (if ever possible - which I think we should be really skeptical about) blockchain can scale to meet tx demand, it's not cheaper than 10 years ago.
"But if a small group of individuals can choose to remove your content, their power greatly outweighs the market at large and the free market is not all that free."
- As above, re: centralisation, we've seen market manipulation in web3 by malicious individuals in power.
"There’s still a risk that the network could change in ways that you don’t agree with, but all is not lost because other participants may feel the same way as you, agree to fork the network, and proceed in a different direction to the majority."
- Agree in principle, but there's so many counter examples (Bcash, eth classic etc.) that I don't know if in practice this is true.
"Let’s look at 2 of the largest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea and LooksRare."
- Something to ponder I suppose, but is this not an example of centralisation similar to existing platforms on web2. Discoverability seems to still only be solved via centralised platforms.
"a platform provides services that can’t be found anywhere else"
- I'm not sure I understand this, are you saying that the concept of a platform is unique or all individual platforms are unique?
"They provide a service that can’t be found anywhere else because the NFTs are unique pieces of art that can’t be found anywhere else."
- I dunno man, the tokens are unique, but is the art? Or is the argument that the token itself is art? (meta af haha)
A general point/question about NFTs
- I might be a luddite but I'm really unclear about the utility gained from purchasing an NFT. Granted there are some offline IRL benefits as you mentioned but the vast majority of purchases seemed fueled by speculation.