> But successful internet communities do everything in their power to remain walled gardens. What could they possibly have to gain by doing this? Like what would Reddit gain by moving Reddit Gold to the blockchain?
We have to reimagine everything, I don't think a successful web3 platform will emerge from simply tacking on tokens to existing platforms. Successful internet communities become walled gardens to protect against competition, but they're limiting the growth of their community members and I believe the platforms themselves could capture more value. A creator on TikTok today can't easily give their most loyal followers discounts on their Shopify store, perks for moderating a Discord, early access to YouTube content, etc.
>We have to reimagine everything, I don't think a successful web3 platform will emerge from simply tacking on tokens to existing platforms.
Greenfield projects are easy because they wave away the real complexities of integrating with existing systems. But those existing platforms already provide a lot of tangible value. If you want users, you can't just ignore that.
>A creator on TikTok today can't easily give their most loyal followers discounts on their Shopify store, perks for moderating a Discord, early access to YouTube content, etc.
That could easily be done with plain old public key cryptography.
Blockchains are really just a shared public key cryptography system. It solves the key distribution problem and makes using keys easy for developers and users.
We have to reimagine everything, I don't think a successful web3 platform will emerge from simply tacking on tokens to existing platforms. Successful internet communities become walled gardens to protect against competition, but they're limiting the growth of their community members and I believe the platforms themselves could capture more value. A creator on TikTok today can't easily give their most loyal followers discounts on their Shopify store, perks for moderating a Discord, early access to YouTube content, etc.