Any web3 platform built for creator/collector activities should be required to make it all open source If they choose to sunset & remove even the read only versions. Intentions don’t make up for time/energy/attention erased. There should & always should have been a public and transparent view of available runway locked away solely for the cost of preserving at the very least a readable version. It’s a choice to build something with creators / art / culture in mind. It’s an honorable endeavor only because art/music has always been difficult & rare to sustain, let alone profit from. But once you commit, you’re doing so acknowledging that it doesn’t function without the creators / consumers who it’s built around. I’m old enough to remember how Zora was marketed to gain those users, that was a powerful mission statement. In fact touching any web3 platform as an artist, especially 2020-2024 was a brand risk. At least for established creators with established audiences… crypto didn’t have the best public image, even when platforms like Zora had mission statements so powerfully addressing the pain points of legacy industry exploitation & injustice. I want you to think about how hard & loud soundxyz ramped up marketing outside of web3, using ig and TikTok to spread the gospel about this better system and platform, comparing it to Spotify etc to lure in normies. Keep in mind, by the time they began this public campaign, they already destroyed the platform, removed value and price control from artists, but most importantly, strategically removed real time / organic discovery. As someone who collected often using that discovery, I know losing it hurt all artists except the chosen ones being botted on stupid leader boards. 100% manipulation & anti artist before marketing to new victims. Then what do you know, Sound goes into maintenance mode for a very long time, until the announcement of fully sunsetting, how can it be so successful to be true to its marketing yet not successful enough to secure funding to even keep the platform alive in read only mode for preservation. Zora basically pulled the same playbook, they sunset our ability to control price, supply, type, then removed real time discovery, then added activity to our following feeds, then fully broke the og version as a sacrifice for the app, an app with the same manipulation of discovery, leaderboards, lost the ability to have what’s created and collected tied to main wallet. But my biggest beef is they even broke the links to our collection pages. There’s not many real humans using Zora, so I’m anticipating that sunset announcement sooner than later. And when it happens, builders will say thank you, it was hard & noble try… And no one will be compassionate or empathetic to how much real time & energy and attention artists/creators sacrificed. And no one will be honest or critical about how pivoting from the original models of these systems with artist control & organic discovery that we praised them for, to anti-user anti creator mechanics of manipulation, out of touch unrealistic incentives, that weren’t even attainable or real for normal users, and instead these platforms were turned into systems of leaderboards & botted success that only flows in the direction of the platforms gated curation. For 1, not many real creators actually value the idea of earning if the trade off is 95% botted engagement. 2nd, just using these platforms as a consumer / collector became horrible experiences even for those us tolerable to crypto…. No chance for normies I could list em all, async, bonfire, rodeo, etc etc I get these are businesses, but I cannot forgot how and who they were originally marketing for and to, and how cruel it’s been to experience being mistreated so quickly & unapologetically by companies and people we not only took risks even supporting or participating…. But our time, energy, hope and optimism was stolen and sacrificed 4 years is a long time to not have anything to show. F*** the earn potential of this technology, I’m talking about ownership, provenance, preservation and even proof of participation. If anyone says build it yourself, I’ll firebomb you while your head is resting on a pillow. This isn’t a normal business model, you’re appealing to people passionate, vulnerable and sensitive people, creators…. I know that word has lost meaning in this algo, slop, disposable content, influencer age. Which only exists because of the big tech dark patterns that brought us to even care about crypto and blockchain. So pivot, sunset…. But you better fully open source it all to people you harvested from.