The first social media platform I joined was The Facebook in 2005. Back then the platform was restricted to a select group of universities. It was exclusive. And this exclusivity made it popular. Everyone wanted to be on Facebook. My cousin, who was at another university not yet on the network, complained about how he had to ‘slum it’ on MySpace. He wanted to be on Facebook so badly that years later he ended up working for the company

Over time Facebook became more and more addictive. With more viral posts and memes. It was taking up my time. And I wasn’t getting much in return. So eventually I decided to quit the platform. And started to use Quora instead, which was founded by ex-Facebook engineers. The Quora founders created the platform because most human knowledge is not on the internet. And Quora gives an opportunity for folks to share knowledge via questions or answers

I started by reading answers about university, science and education. I read some answers and thought that I could improve on them

So I started answering questions myself. Using stories to illustrate my points. And within the first month I had 10k views. This was more views of my writing than I got as a student journalist, or as an academic researcher. My content grew in popularity and I had my first big hit with an answer about the Physicist Richard Feynman, which now has over 750k views. In total my content has been viewed over 3m times. Assuming people spend one minute reading each answer, that’s 180m seconds. Or six years of human time

But I could not explain why some posts got views and others did not. Just because a post is read by many people does not mean it is better than posts with fewer views. It may just mean the post is more viral

The first time I noticed viral posts on Quora was when an account emerged using a profile photo of a female model claiming to be a Harvard Professor. This account’s posts got millions of views within weeks. And people (exclusively men) would make comments on ‘her’ posts about how amazing they were. When they were not. It was a fake account. Then I started to see click-bait posts. Manipulated images. And eventually the whole platform was overwhelmed by viral posts

I think it is a natural law that mind-viruses overwhelm any free-to-use social media platform. Not all viral posts are bad. But consuming them is not an efficient way of discovering valuable information

Free newsfeeds that folks scroll through spreads viruses. Not value. And you want to consume information that has high value. So you can make better decisions about how to live your life. Or so you can enrich your life with knowledge about how the world works

But how do you know how valuable ideas really are? The number of views or the number of likes does not work. And nowadays it is easy to generate content with AI tools such as chat-GPT. This creates junk that is slow to wade through

I think the only way to value creative content online is by having people pay for it. In a marketplace of ideas. Because this signals to others that the content really has value

One way to do this is to put everything behind a paywall. But the problem with this is you have to pay up front. Before you know if the information has value. Also paywalls bundle content (e.g. online newspapers). And not everything that is bundled is equally valuable

And some content has value to some people but not to others. Specialized knowledge may have high value to a small number of folks in that field or industry. But no value to others. Furthermore, the value of knowledge changes over time. Some ideas are not true and once that is discovered their value drops to zero. Other ideas may be true and their value grows over time

For example, Newton’s Laws of mechanics are the foundation of modern engineering. As more people became aware of Newton’s Laws, new applications of his laws were created. Increasing the value of his ideas. And even after his laws were superseded by Einstein’s theory of relativity. They were still used to put a man on the moon

Perhaps the value of Newton’s Laws has plateaued by now. But their value grew for centuries. It’s still essential to know them. And their importance did not diminish with Einstein’s discoveries

There can also be value in gaining early access to ideas. For example, some knowledge is time sensitive. Ideas that help you make better investments will only be useful if you can act on those ideas before others do. Or ideas about how to be healthier are most useful before you become sick

Imagine that this post changes your thinking about how you invest your time. And then you make different choices about how you consume content online. How much value will this have for you? Perhaps nothing right now. First you have to make changes and see results. Those changes may not even be conscious at first. But in the future you may remember this post and come back to it. At that moment you will know it has provided value for you

The value of ideas can only be realized after they have been discovered

But if you have already consumed content for free, what motivation do you have to reward the creator? You could pay the creator out of the goodness of your heart. Or to encourage them to keep producing content. Just like you might give a few dollars to a busker playing music on the streets

But this model is not effective. Because you get nothing directly in return. If you pay a few dollars to a creator that does not mean they will post more content. Nor does it mean that future content they produce will have value for you

To get around this some online services offer a freemium model. Where some content is free. And then if you value the content you pay to get access to exclusive content. But this suffers the same problems as online subscription services. You must pay up front for access before you know how valuable it is

For producers and consumers of creative content to both benefit the following conditions need to be satisfied

• The content is freely available

• You can reward content that you find valuable

• You get something in return for rewarding that content

But how does someone benefit from paying for something they have already consumed for free? This is where NFTs come in. They allow readers to gain ownership of what they have read. This increases its perceived value to the reader. It reminds the reader about what they think it important. And NFTs have built-in scarcity. There will be a limit to how many NFTs are associated with this work. There is more value in having the 1st NFT than the 499th. Because you have gained earlier access to knowledge contained in this work

On Mirror, sponsors of content can see NFTs in their collections. This makes it easier for them to return to the content. And their collections will only consist of the content they truly value. If they decide over time they no longer want this work in their collection, they can auction the NFT for a price. And if more people appreciate this content over time. The price may be more than they originally paid. And royalties from future sales can also be passed onto the creator

For me as a content creator, it is not about making money. It is about knowing the value of ideas. If other people are willing to pay. And the value of what they have bought appreciates over time. The more value is in those ideas

This helps both creators and consumers refine their thinking

And gets them closer to the truth