Why not just do a Patreon? What you’re describing sounds like a Patreon.

-James, incisively summarizing a common critique of web3 fan engagement

Is James right? Is this web3 space simply folks rebuilding the same things that are already available off the shelf?

It’s going to take more than one thought experiment to drill down into this question.

But here’s one way I’ve been thinking about it.

Patreon is a known quantity - call it House of Blues. Absolutely nothing wrong with it - and a place that’s great to play. Great staff, great sound, great vibe. But to play there you need to follow a very clear and well-documented paradigm.

And then over here, we have people exploring every kind of DIY venue possibility from basement show to house concert to theater buy-out. Intentionally non-scaleable; impractical or impossible to franchise and the only thing you need to play that space is a little crew of people dedicated to creating their own paradigm.

In other words, I feel I know where a Patreon subscription would go - I could guess who would participate and even guess how much they’d pay. We would of course be grateful - and it might be a good experience. I am certain we’d have yet another content-hungry black hole that we’d all feel an immense responsibility to fill.

If, instead, we create a place that is an exponent of our current process, a place we bring work we are already doing, offering it to our community outside the normal channels - that place would be an experiment. Maybe one that inspires new and different kinds of art, different interactions, different demands. Full of surprises, all truly unknown.

The kind of place you used to hand out flyers for in the hallways of your highschool.

That said, there’s another element to this that my metaphor alludes to but doesn’t address: aesthetic. If, behind a locked door that can only be opened by NFT there is….a discord server, how does that sit with the kinds of people that are fans of the kind of music we make?

Why not just do a Patreon? What you’re describing sounds like a Patreon.

-James, incisively summarizing a common critique of web3 fan engagement

Is James right? Is this web3 space simply folks rebuilding the same things that are already available off the shelf?

It’s going to take more than one thought experiment to drill down into this question.

But here’s one way I’ve been thinking about it.

Patreon is a known quantity - call it House of Blues. Absolutely nothing wrong with it - and a place that’s great to play. Great staff, great sound, great vibe. But to play there you need to follow a very clear and well-documented paradigm.

And then over here, we have people exploring every kind of DIY venue possibility from basement show to house concert to theater buy-out. Intentionally non-scaleable; impractical or impossible to franchise and the only thing you need to play that space is a little crew of people dedicated to creating their own paradigm.

In other words, I feel I know where a Patreon subscription would go - I could guess who would participate and even guess how much they’d pay. We would of course be grateful - and it might be a good experience. I am certain we’d have yet another content-hungry black hole that we’d all feel an immense responsibility to fill.

If, instead, we create a place that is an exponent of our current process, a place we bring work we are already doing, offering it to our community outside the normal channels - that place would be an experiment. Maybe one that inspires new and different kinds of art, different interactions, different demands. Full of surprises, all truly unknown.

The kind of place you used to hand out flyers for in the hallways of your highschool.

That said, there’s another element to this that my metaphor alludes to but doesn’t address: aesthetic. If, behind a locked door that can only be opened by NFT there is….a discord server, how does that sit with the kinds of people that are fans of the kind of music we make?