The reason I like the phrase “computers that can make commitments” is that it expresses the full generality of the blockchain app design space.

cdixon.org/2020/01/26/com…

(I realize it hasn’t caught on yet - I think it will eventually :))
There is nothing inherently financial about blockchains. Finance happens to be a design-rich subdomain, because blockchains can make commitments about scarcity, ownership, immutable code, etc.
But you can also make other kinds of commitments. For example, ENS makes commitments around how its namespace works and is governed.

You can’t have a situation like this with DNS where a private equity firm tried to control the entire .org tld icdsoft.com/blog/the-org-c…
We’ll soon be seeing social networks and marketplaces that make commitments to users, developers, and creators. This will include commitments to fair and consistent rules and economics for creators and developers.
A secondary effect of a system that can make commitments is that people are willing to invest in and around the system, in the same way people are willing to invest in a country with a predictable rule of law.
No matter how many smart people a big company employs, the vast majority of smart people don't work for them (Joy's Law).

Making credible commitments is an important prerequisite for winning the hearts and minds of the developers and creators.
This is how web1 won, and how web3 will also.

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More from @cdixon

8 Nov
Why gm?

global community- it’s a friendly grounding ritual across different time zones

authentic community with positive sum mindset that genuinely likes each other and uses memes to signal

Symbolic of high clock speed & info density wrt to code, ideas, culture, and memes.
Also a good rule of thumb is faster clock speed wins.

Why Twitter ate news and why web3 will eat culture.

Related: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
Credit to @pmarca here
Read 4 tweets
8 Nov
Certain categories of web2 websites and apps fall into a usability-monetization death spiral. 🧵
Relying on ads and monetizing at low CPMs, the incentive is to add ever more intrusive ads to increase click rates.

User experience degrades, requiring more intrusive ads, in a downward cycle.
News sites, cooking sites, games, music, Q&A, travel, and many other web2 categories that didn’t figure out subscriptions or high-CPM business models fall into this trap.
Read 9 tweets
8 Nov
Facts:

Modern blockchains are fully programmable computers that enable new classes of applications.

PoS blockchains (basically all new blockchains) don’t consumer excess electricity.

More info:

a16z.com/2018/02/10/cry…

a16z.com/crypto-startup…

cdixon.org/2020/01/26/com…
If you read a news source that says otherwise, I’d strongly recommend going direct to primary sources.
The energy use of PoW systems (Bitcoin, Ethereum today before near-term switch to PoS) is more nuanced, but I recommend this essay from Square to understand the pro-PoW argument:

squareup.com/us/en/press/bc…
Read 4 tweets
27 Oct
DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are beginning to have real impact on the adoption of web3 products. @FWBtweets is one of the most promising, so I’m excited to share that @a16z crypto is investing in $FWB and joining the community. a16z.com/2021/10/27/inv…
DAOs are internet-native, global collectives that share resources, build products, and work together toward common goals. This breakthrough method of organizing communities and funneling creative energy is accelerating innovation in web3.
History shows that good things happen when conditions are set for passionate, brilliant people to collaborate on shared ideas. It also shows that disruptive innovations often start with hobbyists coming together to tinker on their shared interests.
Read 4 tweets
23 Oct
What’s next in web3? 🧵
First, where are we today? Let’s start with some anecdotes.
We have an awesome games team led by @Tocelot that invests in founders out of top game studios like Riot, Epic, Blizzard etc. Almost 100% of founders they've met with recently are exploring NFTs in some way, or are already building NFTs into their games
Read 18 tweets
23 Oct
Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance 🧵
A very high percentage of the software in the world is open source. Most datacenter software is open source, mobile phones OSs make heavy use of open source, most next-gen devices like self-driving cars, drones, and embedded computers run mostly open source software.
Open source began as a fringe political movement in the 80s and remained mostly a curiosity through the 90s, but started growing exponentially in the 2000s and after.

Why? Because open source unlocked the power composability.
Read 7 tweets

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