One of the persistent criticisms of crypto is that it represents the ‘hyperfinancialisation’ of things; an obvious and unflattering symptom of our ‘hypercapitalist’ society. If we were to embed crypto into our digital operating system, the argument goes, it would invariably commoditise our online interactions, and thus, naturally, degrade them in some basic sense. Our lives are already financial enough. Therefore, we should seek to resist any further financialisation of the Web. Or at least that’s the basic shape of the argument. 

Admittedly, I once found this line of criticism fairly compelling. If you’ve spent any time at all in crypto, you’ll have noticed that the social games being played are indeed almost always overtly financial in nature (the most notable being NFTs). People ‘shill’ their favourite token or NFT all while appealing to such warm and fluffy notions as ‘community’ and ‘vibes’. As a result, it’s not the kind of social game one imagines scaling to the rest of the world (and nor would doing so seem particularly desirable). Thus if the Internet — and social media, specifically — were to be recast in the mould of NFTs and NFT culture — or current “crypto” as a whole, for that matter — it would almost certainly amount to an even more dystopian environment than the Internet of today. Of that I’m fairly sure.    

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However valid this line of concern may be, its underlying premise is, I now believe, ultimately – and indeed, quite impressively – mistaken. While I continue to find the argument interesting, I now find it interesting *mostly* for how fundamentally wrong, and even harmful, it is. Indeed, the problem with the Internet, I’ve come to be convinced, is not that it’s over-financialised, but rather that it’s dramatically under-financialised. Let me explain.

First, it ought to be appreciated that the reason the Internet isn’t already more explicitly “financial” than it is isn’t because of some enlightened moral philosophy shared by the world’s Internet companies — some conviction, say, in the inherent corruptibility of money (wouldn’t that be ironic). Rather, money is largely absent from our experience of the Internet because we’re overwhelmingly — and very deliberately — excluded from its underlying economics. Of course, it’s not as if the internet isn’t already ‘financialised’. It’s just that the financial activity operates primarily in the background, in the dark. Similarly, that money isn’t in plain-view on the Web isn’t because there isn’t money being made. It’s only because it’s not being made by us, the Internet’s citizenry.

Likewise, the fact that we don’t have to pay to use the majority of Internet services isn’t because the Internet is some egalitarian, post-capitalist, post-scarcity utopia. Nor is it because of the altruism of Google and Facebook, some kind of noble corporate sacrifice. We don’t pay, simply, because we’re not the target customers of said services. Rather, we’re the product itself; our attention — and the insights they produce — a commodity sold to the highest bidder (and without so much as a thank you). 

Today’s Internet is characterised by a fundamental political and economic asymmetry between platforms and their users. And although the latter makes the former possible, with very little exception, they’re almost entirely excluded from their economic upside. True, some number of people are able to command a living from social media. The overwhelming majority, however, (>99%?) are not. 

It’s easy to dismiss the politics and/or economics of Internet platforms as trivial, or, if not trivial, certainly less consequential than other things worth worrying about (a growing list, to be sure). But the Internet is increasingly where we interact and transact, increasingly where we spend our lives. It really matters, it would seem, the political and economic rules by which it operates. Just the same as meatspace.

The problem with the current state of Internet affairs, and its centralisation of power, isn’t just the inherent inequity or injustice of the situation. The problem is also the missed opportunity. What we have with the Web is a global peer-to-peer network capable of transmitting information, effectively instantaneously, between nodes. If ever there were a technology capable of producing truly global economic benefit and distributing it fairly, it’s the Internet – and crypto is the payment rails that makes it possible. Imagine, for a moment, a world where the Internet is owned and operated by its users – a world where the five billion folk (and growing) who have access to the Internet actually share in its value. Crypto is the key to that future. 

There’s also a whole other class of problem that introducing money into the base-layer of the Internet could conceivably solve. Introducing some notion of user-side economic incentives could reduce the problem of spam, say, or bots on social media. It’s also conceivable that introducing certain financial incentives could improve our use of the Internet generally – encouraging us to direct our attention in ways that might be more aligned with our most important values, and less our baser instincts. The design space here is ostensibly infinite, with many promising avenues.

So why, then, if it’s such an obviously good direction, do the critics so staunchly oppose the movement? I have to think that the general disdain with which crypto is held by the InTelLiGenTsIa has something to do with the general intellectual bias against money. The intellectual establishment has, for a variety of reasons, long held money with something approaching contempt. Perhaps because it’s beneath them and their lofty thoughts; too crass, too vulgar. Whatever the case, it grossly neglects just how important money and its unobstructed flows are to the welfare of the human condition. Of course, it’s easy to cast judgment on money and diminish its essentiality from the comfort of the Ivory Tower. Such a position is considerably less seductive, however, from the trenches of abject poverty.

There is a valid critique of crypto and its complications, however. That is, that implementing money and economic incentives into the DNA of the Internet without simultaneously f*cking things up would be hard. Certainly, introducing money greatly increases the complexity of things. Especially in the social context, it’s hard to imagine how we might embed and distribute real financial value, without also creating a new set of incentives that could prove harmful or otherwise distort the social experience. And yet, hard though it may be, it’s harder still to imagine that there’s not a way to thread the needle here. In the end, the fundamental guiding principle here is that users should be owners and politically engaged members of the networks they participate in and contribute value to (i.e. first-class citizens). While this undoubtedly presents a host of new design challenges, it’s somewhat condescending to think that users aren’t capable of both participating in a network, ala Facebook, and owning it, without somehow losing their minds as a result. In any case, just because something is hard doesn’t mean it should be avoided. For the hardest things are, as in this case, often the most necessary.