# Is it Time to Rewrite the Unwritten Contract?

**Published by:** [New Economic Revolution](https://paragraph.com/@abundance/)
**Published on:** 2025-08-26
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@abundance/unwritten-contract

## Content

For the last 20 years we had an unwritten contract between users and platforms, is it time to change it? The contract went like this: Users will drive attention to the platform, and in exchange the platform will provide them with distribution Sounds like a win-win, right? Well, not exactly. Because platforms didn’t care how users drove attention — they only cared that they did And what’s the most effective way to drive it? Conflict and drama The users who pushed outrage porn and sensationalism, exaggerated facts or fabricated claims for clicks, were therefore also those that got the most attention — and most distribution — on the platform But that came at a price — both to other users and to society as a whole Users could no longer tell what’s true and what’s made up, the media and institutions suffered from a crisis of trust, society became polarized, and the platforms turned into cesspools of toxicity But what almost everyone forgot was that there was nothing sacred about the Attention-for-Distribution contract It was not some fundamental principle of nature. In reality, platforms could determine distribution in any way they chose Attention-for-Distribution made sense in one context: when the platform makes money from advertising it wants to maximize user attention on the platform But in the age of open graphs and cryptocurrencies, attention is not the only game in town And once Network Economies enter the picture, things can change dramatically Then we’d see the emergence of a new mode of production; where contributors collaborate, build in public, and get paid not for the attention they drive but for the value they create This new social network paradigm would look something like this: communities, startups and businesses wish to grow and prosper from the new mode of production They put money into the Network based on how much growth and benefits they expect to get from the system A community may want unbiased reporting on local events Startups may want to leverage the network’s collective intelligence to get advice and services that they otherwise couldn't afford on their own Businesses may similarly benefit from the speed and compounding value of a vast network of builders creating open source systems The platform’s role in this new economy is to serve as the medium for flow of value (both monetary and information) throughout the network. The Network would then want to compensate the platform for the value it provides, and for the ongoing development and maintenance that goes into running it The new unwritten contract between the platform and users would thus be based on value creation, and not on attention — the more value users create on the platform the more they are rewarded This is a true win-win-win; for users, for the platform, and for the Network Economy as a whole Because unlike attention — that could benefit or harm others — value creation is always positive sum; it benefits everyone on the network The new unwritten contract would therefore not only benefit the network, it would also pave the way for a new kind of social network and a new mode of production for the economy. We can finally restore sensemaking, bring trust back to media and harmony to society Let's write that contract!

## Publication Information

- [New Economic Revolution](https://paragraph.com/@abundance/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@abundance/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@abundance): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Abundance_DAO): Follow on Twitter