In the new /gift-economics channel on Farcaster, Studio Slowcore is now hosting the Gift Economics Roundtable: ongoing conversations on gift economics and the structural issues involved in funding creative work sustainably.

In keeping with the studio's focus on wordsmith arts and slow culture, the channel caters to long-reads folks and systems thinkers who love deep dives in written form.

From the channel FAQ:

"We think the overwhelming majority of the "creator economy" in crypto as it stands (what @abundance has called the "Tokenized Attention Creator Economy") is failing to meaningfully deliver on the value prop of rewarding creative people appropriately for their work."

Tom Beck's recent essay Why Artists Can't Get Paid is an excellent survey of the true depth of these issues.

The Gift Economics Roundtable conversations are an extension of the Return On Attention Roundtable (ROAR) discussions, which began in a private group chat (profiled in Quality Writing is Systemic) and are now making their way into the public sphere.

What follows is one of the first such conversations in the channel. See the cast thread for the context of the original discussion among Mike (@abundance), @trigs, and @danicaswanson.

imagine if you and I had a polymarket bet on whether I would do something tomorrow

what do you think are the odds of me winning that bet?

this is what asymmetry of information looks like

now imagine I give people "shares" in this market - some get the 'yes' shares and some 'no' shares

these shares are "free" so you're not losing anything either way, but you might win something. do these shares align our interests? No. I just bought attention for my sure bet in exchange for a few crumbs.

these are the kinds of "markets" we're creating today in our quest to replace web2's attention-based "Creator Economy" with a web3 speculative version of a "Creator Economy" (which is also attention based, but maybe has fewer ads)

we can keep "innovating" in that direction, but none of these "experiments" are likely to benefit actual creators

it would benefit creators who are good at speculating... and non-creators who are good at speculating

come to think of it, the "creator" part of it is completely superfluous

it's speculation coupled with virtue signaling

so no, that's not how we put creators first, and it's hardly an improvement over the centralized platforms that extract value from creators

just because we have speculative instruments doesn't mean that the solution to every problem is "more speculation!"

it's time to put creators first, and design systems from first principles to benefit creators

Speculation and the gift economy?

I think this is a great little story-problem to address the issue of speculative markets in terms of gift-based economies.

Can you give gifts when there's a speculative opportunity for reward?

I don't know, but I really like how @abundance is framing this to draw attention to how adding a speculative loop to the core function of value exchange does not inherently align interests. Is it possible to have interests aligned around a speculative value proposition? Probably.

But when it comes to supporting content creators, speculation and extraction are exactly the opposite of the goal:

Supporting creators.

Nothing about speculation is inherently supportive or motivating for creators. Speculation motivates and supports people who enjoy gambling, and in blockchain specifically trading. Traders love speculation!

Why? Because they have outsized opportunities to extract value from speculative assets.

And that's why it is inherently in opposition to the goal of supporting creators, because if traders have outsized exposure to upside, it means creators have outsized exposure to loss of value unless they become traders.

Maybe a hot take, but I think the majority of people will never become traders and never want to be.

Speculation needs to live in secondary markets where the core value being created is at least somewhat protected from the volatility to ensure creators are properly incentivized to continue creating quality content and not sniped into gaming the speculation.

just to point out that speculation plays an important part in markets; it's the other side of hedging

one party wants to minimize risk and is willing to pay a premium for that. the other party is speculating — taking on risk in exchange for the premium

this is taken to an extreme in casinos, where the house takes a premium while speculators produce no tangible value other than their own entertainment (and potential reward, which on average of course is a loss)

applying this system to rewarding creators is a bit of a misdirection: you're still playing a casino game. you're still doing it for your own entertainment. the casino (platform) still takes its premium, but now the creator also gets some crumbs (and you get to virtue signal that you're not "just" playing a casino game)

Yes, well said. Very important to call this out with prejudice.

The virtue signaling is so dangerous because people's expectations get out of control when they think it's something that it's not.

And don't get me wrong, I'm all for speculation and markets. I just think they need to stay in their lane.

Not everything works better as a speculative marketplace.

💯 we need markets (and we need to build better markets!)

speculation has an important role to play in markets, but it has to be secondary to value creation

Well said, both of you.

In general I think gift economies should be considered as a complement to market economies, not an "alternative" to them.

Speculation and markets have their place. But I agree with you both: actual value creation comes first, and markets "need to stay in their lane" (love that phrasing) rather than extracting most of the value created by the gift and turning it into private profit.

"rather than extracting most of the value created by the gift and turning it into private profit"

Such a crucial part to get right! I think this is exactly where the struggle is. I think this is why I'm so nerd-sniped by the concept of a gift "increasing in value when it's given." Not invested. Not speculated on. Given.

Investments and speculation can also have this 'increasing' effect, but when talking about the context of creator-content and funding things that aren't so easily quantified into a token... this is where the giving part becomes so crucial in order to get that exponential value creation effect.

Invest in a creator: now the creator is beholden to your investment and obligated to pursue a return vs pursuing their creativity. Stunted.

Speculate on a creator: now the creator is incentivized to prioritize pumping the speculative behavior so that they can extract value to pay their bills. Rugged.

Give freely to a creator: NOW suddenly the creator has their bills paid, and they are untethered and free to explore their creativity. This is when value can be created!

Once value is actually being created, suddenly there becomes market potential for people to invest and speculate, because there's something real to invest in and speculate on.

Gift-giving is the necessary precursor to market activity when it comes to creative content. Without it, the market will always be dominated by mass-produced, low-quality content that feeds the lowest common denominator: short-term attention.

That's beautifully written and right on target, Trigs. I bookmarked it. Maybe turn that into a Paragraph post or something...?

I agree about what a nerd-snipe it is to think about the implications of the gift as "giving increase" rather than "earning profit."

Quoting from the gift economics channel FAQ:

"Our thesis is that economic models to sustain long-term creative work and community-building begin (but do not end) with gift culture."

"The standard ways of monetizing creative work extract gift value, convert it into profit, and route the lion's share of it away from creative people. We want to go in the other direction: restore and preserve gift value flows, return more value to those who actually create it, and convert profit into gift."

"It's a challenging systems design problem! But if there's anywhere it can be done, it's on Farcaster."

Actually, on second thought... maybe it's worth turning this entire convo into a Paragraph post! After all, much of its value (gift value) is in the context.