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This surge of interest also speaks to the wider chicken-and-egg scenario in web3, in that people have been howling about mainstream adoption and the next billion for quite a while. And even though there are blockchain-based applications that are pretty cool, none of them are single-handedly drawing millions of consumers or users in.
To be quite clear: I don’t think that’s a problem. Web3 has opened up so many possibilities for me and others. It’s a non-judgemental work environment, almost like an exclusive members club at times (do not say cult). Is this not enough?
This mainstream adoption thing feels a bit worn out. The ‘we need more apps and less infra’ is just a recycling of that narrative. What baffles me further is how difficult funding is to acquire for ‘nursery’ web3 events aimed at onboarding new users.
In other words, many in the web3 industry proclaim a pronounced focus on acquiring new users but when the chips are down funding tends to follow safer bets.
So it leaves me wondering: who in the name of Christ are we marketing to?
It often seems that our strategies are tailored more for impressing each other within the niche than overreaching new users.
For example, the number of active newcomer developers peaked in 2022 and hasn’t hit the same level since. Electric Capital’s 2023 Developer Report confirms that the number of newcomers has decreased Year-on-Year, although we must await the 2024 updates.
That’s not to say the industry isn’t growing. This Web3 Industry report cites 100,000 jobs added globally within a year, adding to nearly half a million working in web3 globally. It’s nowhere near a billion though and the trend makes clear we need to rethink how to attract and retain talent in web3. Also, are workers ‘users’? I’m curious.
Anyways, not to make a big deal but something isn’t working. So many paradoxes it makes me dizzy. The one I want to focus on is making privacy cool. So let’s fkn go.
Privacy in an Age of Peacocking
I dated a girl who was fully confident an incognito browser was enough to hide her online activity. I told her that was mental. Did that clarity really impact her life? Not really. It’s hard to feel compelled about something with no immediate consequences.
The fact our digital social experience preys on a human lust for acceptance, validation and popularity doesn’t help. Like did you even if you didn’t take a photo of it? The dopamine loop is so ingrained I can’t even imagine a world without brain rot.
A successful peacock won’t hide its feathers, so privacy can’t be sexy. So I guess my real question is what kind of privacy is important?
Rosa Cecilia ranted about how data is power for independent musical artists like her, but platforms like Spotify store it in a black box. The only time the public gets a glimmer of how cool listening data can be is Spotify Wrapped, which is pretty cool to be fair and an excellent example of how to make people ok with the exploitation of their data.
Oscillator is a project working on unlocking this data with a privacy preserving social graph. Pairing this with Rosa’s idea to identify her superfans, it’s not hard to think of serendipitous things that could happen. But for me it goes way beyond the artist-fan relationship.
Consider the wealth of information to be deduced from your listening habits. If Meta can get a pretty good read from just your likes, Spotify's insights are likely far more profound. Depending on what music you listen to and when, your precise mood could be predicted. The more you use Spotify, the more accurately it can infer your mood, daily routines, and even personality traits.
That’s not to mention the podcast side of things. While Spotify may not have 100% accurate readings on your entire being, estimations are likely to be unnervingly close. Feeding your usage data from other applications means you could go layers deeper than a mere ‘superfan’. Are they mentally stable? Do they have healthy habits online? How do they interact with others?
All valid concerns when one in seven people report being a victim of stalking, even without prominence. So it wouldn’t exactly be ‘sexy’ but you could create a zk-wrapped, two-sided marketplace for famous figures that want to connect more deeply with their community and followers that have an interest in verifying their status without exposing other sensitive data.
This "authentic but anonymous” system allows for selective access, much the same way a sperm bank operates. It may be far-fetched, but I don’t see why the rise of personalised celebrity interactions, the use of zk technology in healthcare (mental or otherwise) and consumer trends in privacy couldn’t intersect in this way. Cat McGee and I flirted with this idea recently at ETHRome.
Sunlight, peeping toms and nosey parkers begone!
You won’t find anyone shilling curtains as a privacy preserving technology, because they're just something you need. You’re insane if you don’t have them in your home.
This pretty much flips when you enter the digital arena, trading privacy for an experience optimised to keep you hooked. Presuming at least a portion of the target audience is external to web3, you’re luring people out of this entrenchment. So web3 communications and marketing will come up against more challenges than just finding elbow room in a crowded market.
Rory Sutherland is quite simplistic in his take on influencing perceptions and behaviours. Rather than brute forcing a problem, he champions a subtle low cost change to induce massive shifts in perception. There are many examples he references to illustrate this point:
afford highest taxpayers certain civil privileges, like driving in the bus lane, taking the sting out of heavy taxation.
prioritising the standing passenger on trains over the seated to increase public transport use
spending half the cost of constructing high speed rail on employing super models to serve champagne onboard
Rory has also identified many real instances this has played out, my favourites being: moving baggage claim further away from the terminal gate to reduce complaints about wait times; the installation of mirrors into lifts to occupy passengers; providing a selection of music to choose from while in the lift; the doubletree cookie upon arrival. These things play very cleverly on the way we view things and they’re almost counterintuitive in some cases.
Ponder the below scenario with me for a moment:
It’s 20 years in the past. You are a parent. Your young child receives an offer for early access to a modern smartphone. This comes with a waiver that includes unbridled access to the internet and all its content; harvesting your child’s usage data to make the product better/stickier/more addictive; no liability for the harm caused as a result of any unforeseen effects or consequences.
Here your child is stepping into a glass box. Every time they chat, shop or scroll online, it's analysed and processed. Over time and at scale, the body of behavioural data becomes so vast that features can be implemented to influence the masses or induce individual action.
Persuasive design techniques like infinite scrolling, auto-play, variable reward schedules and social validation are all a part of this. So what’s the one simple trick to make privacy cool?
Don’t ask me. Maybe the answer is at a marketing summit or a marketing hackathon.
It’s all out there, waiting to happen.
Giving my honest take, long term fulfilment can trump instant gratification. Some form of cathartic creation could work because there’s nothing more expressive than building something and there’s nothing you can’t build!
Relationships, reputations, poems, stories, a movement, an application. You name it.
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying web3 has cathartic properties. It may be a disjointed experience overall but it feels good when you get over the hump, delivering a nuanced sense of satisfaction when compared to scrolling mindlessly for hours.
Obsessing over mainstream adoption for years, as if it’s the end point, departs from this side of web3. It’s disjointedness is the distinctive feature. Plus what happens after mainstream adoption, we all retire to Bali? Would be fun for about two weeks.
The opportunity lies in the spiral of silence, in that our willingness to express ourselves is linked to how we will be perceived afterward. If the risk is too high, people tend to stay silent. Without getting into any moral debate (for now), reverse engineer that.
The unconventional and unpopular is almost guaranteed to get attention because likely very few will pursue it. Privacy can supercharge this by removing the ‘consequences’, as a form of self defence. Think of it this way: Banksy’s art necessitated anonymity because graffiti was/is illegal.
Now, I don’t condone burning down [insert your government here] in the name of expression and cultural significance. I do, however, believe that several key aspects of human life are arbitrarily regulated and policed, causing more harm than good.
These include but are not limited to sex work and recreational drug use.
Maybe we are afraid of the hammer coming down on us to market directly to these audiences. But I hope it is obvious what I’m getting at here.
In a world where algorithms invade the machinations of our minds, the intrinsic link between integrity and privacy is what matters. Privacy is self defence.
In a system that commoditises data on an enormous scale, you have an audience and aren’t making anything off the ticket sales. Privacy is not a crime.
In a society valuing harm reduction as a public good, everyone should be able to control and profit from their personal data. Privacy is cool.
So, who are we really marketing to?
The recursive loop of selling web3 to ourselves isn’t driving adoption the way we claim to want.
Despite the fact that loads of money is floating around our industry, not enough of it is focused on the chicken-and-egg problem head-on. Which comes first, users or apps?
If mainstream adoption is the ultimate goal, that’s alright. Maybe though we should start designing strategies that truly resonate with people beyond our niche.
More importantly, we need to show and not tell.
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