TLDR

• The next generation of social media platforms will adopt web3 features that enable creators to establish a direct link with their audiences, bypassing unilateral service terms of centralized platforms.

• Content will naturally flow out of private cloud servers and into open data lakes that are platform agnostic. Incumbents will fail at keeping their user’s data locked in their platforms.

• App builders and users will be able to access open composable data as they see fit, giving way to a new variety of applications that can maximize value for their audience, as opposed to maximize user time spent on the apps.

In Part 1: The Content Creator’s Choice, we laid out the main demons that need to be exorcised from social media to make platforms work in favor of their users. This time, we’ll go deeper into some of the remedy solutions that can help us with this task. Just as breaking a bad habit, moving away from the common social practices we do every day online will require not only willpower, but the solution needs to be an upgrade that can naturally replace the bad habit. Why? It’s almost impossible for users to leave their platforms because of the strong network effects that exist there. It’s just the same with a smoker that’s trying to quit, if his entire close circle also smokes, breaking the habit becomes a greater challenge. In the same way, if a TikTok user has a big following and has built a network in there, there will be little incentive to leave the platform even if the user knows that TikTok is feeding off of him and does more harm than good.

So to recap from Part 1, the following is a list of some of the main problems social media users currently pose to content creatos:

1. Platform constrained audiences: Creators can’t export their audience elsewhere.

2. Siloed Content: All content is locked in the platform where it was published.

3. Censorship: Comply or be silenced, banned or deleted.

4. Shady Algorithms: Content is ranked and prioritized for max value for the platform.

5. Asymmetric Value distribution: Platform keeps the earnings, creators get scraps.

6. Corporate moral and political biases: Get sucked into debates about the platform’s agenda.

Let's start with the issue of platform constrained audiences. In most cases today,  content creators' audiences are "hosted '' in each platform where they are active. A youtuber cannot export and migrate followers to Twitter. He must create an account on each platform, and operate a separate content strategy for each. However, there are some other cases where platforms allow their creators to keep, manage, and even export their followers in the form of email lists. Such is the case of platforms like Substack for publishing newsletters or Mailchimp for online marketing. That’s an advantage of collecting readers’ emails, they allow content to reach consumers directly in their private inbox. A social media platform may provide distribution to a wider audience, but creators still need to compete for impressions and engagement against each other.

A social network built on web3 infrastructure would provide similar advantages to newsletter platforms, but instead of managing email lists, creators can establish a more direct link with their audience by means of a platform agnostic profile, which would be based on a cryptographic set of keys, where the profile represents the user's identity and aggregate history online. In this scheme your profile is ubiquitous, your audience is your own, you access it directly across any channel or format. So it’s an upgrade form building email lists. You can reach the same audience by means of adding them as subscribers, but instead of just getting an email, creators get connected with a complete online persona, which creates a more personal relationship without the need of a private platform.

There’s  progress being made in this field by some of the newer social media platforms. The approach is always slightly different, but the general goal is clear. For example, most web3 platforms are currently attempting to replace Twitter with a decentralized version of the microblogging app, even more so after it was turned into X. Imagine a world where getting suspended from Twitter doesn't mean that you lose access to your audience; instead you can just start publishing through another channel and still reach your followers. Since this is to an extent already a feature in platforms focused on email messaging, it would be expected that as web3 social networks grow, we will witness how the creator-audience relationship becomes less reliant on platforms and will rather depend on distribution channels and type of content. This is a very powerful change, it will allow people to build an audience without having to comply with the one-sided rules of social media overlords. In other words, content creators will be able to reach their audience directly, while consumers will be able to access any platform of their choice to receive the content of the people they follow, regardless of where the content has been originally published.

This simple shift in dynamics helps solve the problem of platform constrained followers, that alone is a huge step in the right direction. But we still have some issues to examine. If creators are not bound to a social media platform to connect with their audiences, they will still require a reliable way to host and distribute content so as to reach and grow their follower base. Incumbent social networks excel at this service and even provide it "for free" to creators. All they ask in return is that they may leverage the published content to target consumers with highly personalized ads. This may sound bleak, but this trade-off is enough for people to surrender publishing freedom and play ball with the platform of their choice. It would even seem as though this is their only choice. How else could creators reliably host their content and reach consumers without the infrastructure and network effects of established platforms? Nowadays, even musicians have to rely heavily on Spotify and Apple Music for distribution, sacrificing big portions of their royalties in the process.

This conflict brings us to our next topic, which might be one of the most interesting fields developing in crypto today. This is the topic of decentralized storage networks, which incentivize independent participants to scale the infrastructure of the network in order to store and replicate user data. They could present a viable alternative to some of the problems listed above. What if creators no longer need to rely on a centralized platform to publish content?

Let's explore this from a different angle. Siloed data is a big problem of social networks today. Companies will protect their user generated content at all costs, as this is the product with which they attract eyeballs and advertisers. Regardless of their efforts, there is growing evidence that keeping data locked in their servers is likely to become more and more complicated as AI powered content creation apps flood the market. It’s worth raising awareness of the fact that in an era where AI assistants run wild in every platform, it will be near impossible for companies to keep their content from being accessed and processed by AI agents. The amount of AI generated content will explode and all of it will be a derivation of everything that is currently available on the web. Content starts to mix and merge into an indiscernible pool of data. Who owns this data or in what servers it's stored becomes an increasingly irrelevant matter. The same derivative content will likely be hosted in every platform. Out of fear of this scenario playing out, we have seen that both X and Reddit decided to restrict the API access to their content behind paywalls, arguing that this measure should protect them from web scrapers and third parties building profitable businesses by leveraging their freely available content. Success of these measures is a net negative for users of these platforms, as the goal is to keep user generated content within protected silos that generate ad revenue, but constrain content reach as companies lose incentives to enable access to their data. People without an account in some platforms used to be able to see tweets or subreddits for information, now they need to create accounts (and sometimes pay) in order to be able to see posts from these communities. The user backlash against these measures was strong and loud, but ultimately ineffective.

This is where decentralized storage networks come in. In order for cyberspace to provide free and open access for all participants, data and user content need to break the shackles of their social media platform overlords. Data is being kept in cages in the form of servers in huge data centers across the world. Not only that, but the keys to this data are kept by the social media platforms. They can access it at will and delete it whenever they desire. This is where decentralized storage platforms come in. As the name suggests, data is saved and replicated across independent nodes that have incentives to offer their extra storage capacity to the network.

Take for example Arweave, a decentralized infrastructure network that allows its users to store data forever. Users pay in advance to upload data to the network. This payment covers the cost to replicate the data at least 20 times across its nodes and guarantees that it will be hosted for at least 200 years. Arweave is permission-less, so anybody can make use of the network to store or access data on it. Thus, in contrast to incumbent social media platforms, the architecture of this decentralized network of nodes assures that the data cannot be arbitrarily erased by third parties. This can give way to a new type of web where content can run freely, unconstrained from it’s silos.

In this scenario, user generated content can be hosted and distributed without relying on private social networks for these services and without having to relinquish ownership of the data. The best thing about an open and permission-less social platform: content can be uploaded and consumed by anybody, anywhere, anytime; without bending to the terms and conditions of a private company. Better yet, given the decentralized nature of this new type of network, the problem of data censorship by third parties is also solved. In other words, the risk of hosted data being compromised by unilateral policy enforcements, is eliminated. Users of this social network can’t be silenced or deleted unilaterally, because there is no central party that can decide on who is allowed to share their expressions and who is not. This also doesn’t mean that hateful speech and harmful content can run unchecked. Independent network nodes have the ability to decide on the content they store and replicate. This way, participants auto-regulate the content on the network and prevent nefarious or dangerous data from spreading without consequence.

With this, it should be clear that social media built on web3 platforms and decentralized networks offer some very clear advantages over the networks that we’ve come to rely on daily. For example, instead of having megalomaniac CEOs restrict content behind paywalls, permission-less cyberspace enables the creation of open data lakes that can be accessed by anyone, both to read and write content. So, while the biggest social media empires fight each other to protect their content, a bold strategy here is to take the opposite action and just embrace the free flow of data, no matter the format, the media type, or the source; grant builders access to endless content, and they can package it and deliver it to consumers in the way that is most convenient to them. In a world where content is king and it's set free from its constraints, corporate user interfaces (UIs) shall slowly become irrelevant.

We’ve analyzed here 3 of the major problems we identified in Part 1. Platform constrained audiences, siloed content, and arbitrary censorship are issues that mostly deal with the restriction of access to data and the fight over owning it and keeping it caged and contained. Data wants to be free. Breaking out of the cage is inevitable. We begin to see the leaks in the private data silos, no matter what measures are taken by corporate social media to build walls around it and churn it for profit. Data finds a way into more servers and into the free cyberspace. The only move left will be to allow this to happen and to rather enable creators and builders to freely access an endless sea open data and leverage it for their creations. This scenario reminds me of the ending in Ghost in the Shell. In the words of Major Motoko Kusanagi after it has merged with Puppet Master to form a new being unbounded of its shackles: “And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite.”

In the final installment of this essay, we’ll look into the final 3 issues, which deal with how to build the economic incentives so that creators and users will naturally shift to new platforms rather than stay where they are and continue fighting against their odds. We’ll deal with content distribution set ups and tools for monetization. As we mentioned in the beginning, the only way to break the bad practices that overrun most existing social networks, will be to build alternatives that make the move simple and obvious for content creators.

                                                                                                                             - Ketzal Co.

Part 1: The Content Creator’s Choice

• The current landscape of social media platforms features a broken system that works against users and creators.

• The incentives for people to continue publishing on these platforms are diminishing rapidly.

• Incumbent social media platforms are riddled with flaws and feed off of their users to benefit only their corporate reptilian overlords.

I've been thinking much about the future of online content. After years active in the crypto space, I just recently began thinking about the importance and impact your voice can have on your community of peers and beyond. Good content alone is enough to build an online presence, establish a brand, and boost a career. Having an audience grants the most effective path to engage with a community, learn new things,  exchange value, and build awesome products. Up until now, I've never been invested in building an online presence because I've always been more comfortable as a silent spectator of the industry. I've spent most of my productive years in crypto being engaged with building products and ecosystems. Most times the simpler path is to post nothing and remain silently on the sidelines instead striving to build an audience.

I finally decided to start building a brand, leveraging the knowledge attained working the crypto industry for so long. However, as I ventured into my new journey into content, I soon stumbled onto complicated questions and crossroads, where my course of action would have a defining impact on the very core of the brand I was trying to create; so these decisions could not be taken lightly. The most important question would turn out to be: Which platform should I choose for my content?. This is quite the momentous decision. It’s easy to see there is no single social network that is currently well positioned to survive the paradigm shift the internet is currently undergoing, without themselves experiencing enduring damage to their established business models. The respective CEOs of each one of the major content platforms are showing evidence of their awareness of these matters, so they have begun to take preemptive actions to defend their empires, as the war for social media supremacy intensifies.

So, after this short preamble about my personal journey into the realm of online content, I set off to describe in detail some ideas about what I think is currently happening across social networks; as AI begins to take center stage in every platform, and content slowly leaks out of its heavily guarded data silos, that are the coveted property of the content monopolies of the world (META, X, TikTok, etc).

This will be an essay consisting of 3 short, digestible parts. In this first part we will briefly examine some of the main flaws that current social media platforms have, that users have to inevitably put up with. The second part will explore some of the readily available solutions to these challenges, and the third part will be a thought exercise on what social media could become in a world of composable data and platform agnostic content, once the current demons have been slain.

Content creators select a platform where they wish to grow their online presence. Choosing among the available pool of social networks is the most impactful decision. One could even say that choosing a platform is "forever". Why? because once a user starts gathering followers on a platform, he will direct his resources to establish a brand and keep growing the number of followers that can later be monetized in a variety of ways. But there are some very obvious problems with this model. Let's look at some of them:

1. Platform constrained audiences: The nastiest problem of them all; followers are not transferable across platforms. If you've built a Twitter audience, you can't just take your followers with you if you decide you want to stop using Twitter and start using Threads. Even worse, if for some reason you would lose your account or get suspended, you lose all your followers! You can bolster more than 200k followers and suddenly get suspended, and your account can be lost forever. This is a massive blow for anyone who has put in countless hours to build an online brand, and it happens across all social networks.

2. Siloed content: The content that users generate in a social network is generally constrained to the platform it's deployed to. In other words, users need to play by the rules of the platform they're using and will often relinquish many of their creator's rights in exchange for the platform's content hosting and distribution services. The user can share the content across different platforms, but if for some reason his account should get suspended or deleted, all the uploaded content may also become inaccessible through any other channels.

3. Censorship: Any type of post that is deemed non compliant with the platforms' often discretionary content guidelines, can be demoted or deleted, while the uploader account can get unilaterally banned. Youtube, Instagram, and TikTok are relentless at censoring content and accounts that slightly deviate from their guidelines and may thus jeopardize advertisers' revenue. All platforms currently have the power to delete you with no accountability whatsoever. They own your online persona. As an additional fun exercise, try to get data for suspended and banned accounts across several social media platforms. It’s nearly impossible to get. So if you get deleted, there might not even be a record for that. Your profile just ceases to exist, you will become a statistic that is hidden behind corporate bureaucracy.

4. Shady Ranking Algorithms: Algorithms rank and prioritize content according to sets of rules that are usually unknown to the creators themselves. It is regularly said that breaking through the fog of anonymity as a new content creator has become increasingly difficult as social networks have matured and content from big influencers is prioritized by the networks' algorithms. This system sets all creators to compete against each other so that their posts will make it to the timelines of their target audiences. Consumers' attention is limited, so the battle for views and engagement is a fierce struggle for relevance and online survival.

5. Asymmetric value distribution: Social networks need quality content to attract and retain users. The content creator thus becomes a driver of value for the platform he selected. He will inadvertently work for the platform with the hopes of growing an audience and eventually profit from a revenue sharing scheme set in place by the platform. But it's common knowledge that the benefits of this sort of partnership are asymmetric. The networks' cut from advertiser revenue is disproportionately larger than that of content creators.

6. Corporate Moral and Political Biases: Billionaires are an eccentric bunch. Social networks have made a handful of individuals massive fortunes, so now we have to continuously listen to what they have to say as they attempt to shape the world in a way that will fatten their wallets further. CEO’s might be outspoken about their morals and political preferences. They might publicly side with the politicians that have promised them behind closed doors to let their businesses run rampant and give them government subsidies. In such cases, as much as the CEOs deny it, their biases will reach the social networks they own and manage. Their influence will be felt all across the board, regardless of the platforms’ alleged neutrality. This can affect content creators, making them stand in the crossfire of heated debates about politics and moral standards. This is not entirely a bad thing, but it’s definitely not ideal if you’re writing content about cheese types of the world or science fiction.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. We could go on and on listing flaws in the way social networks work today. But the good news is that these one-sided business relationships forced upon creators by centralized content platforms have clear solutions. New web3 platforms already offer an array of tools and features that are becoming more available and easy to use every day. The UX is getting better and the network effects are building up. The reality is that, once you compare these new social networks to their incumbents, it’s no longer a question of “why would web3 social replace incumbents?” but “when?”.

In the next installment we’ll explore the flaws liste here a little deeper as we re-imagine what the future of online content and social networks may look like when the tables get turned and content rules over platforms.

                                                                                                                   - Ketzal Co.

The web as we know it

It's an interesting time we live in. The web is evolving. The way we interact online is changing. The content we consume is getting more sophisticated and personalized every day. The concept of reality is increasingly turning into a matter of perspective, rather than a consensus on observable facts and events. The spaces we’ve counted on to carry out an online discussion have become servants to central powers and corporate profit.

Twitter is falling, there’s no going back. What was once a medium that served to organize social protests that toppled governments, is itself entering the final phase of its decline, victim of its own success. The platform that has been until recently considered a public online town square has turned into the personal playground of a man with the need to hold the loudest megaphone on the square.

The discourse in social media has become stagnant. Instead of providing users with a forum for productive discussions and innovation, the most popular social networks have turned into outright marketing and sales machines that profit from keeping people attached to their screens for long periods of time.

Additionally, the rise of generative retail AI tools will make derivative online content explode like we have never experienced before. It is becoming harder and harder to differentiate content from real people and AI accounts. Original content creators and journalists will find it harder to thrive in networks where AI bot accounts can flood the platforms with no effort or production costs. Misinformation will run rampant unless we are able to build a system of accountability that makes sourceless data irrelevant.

Is the current path sustainable? We don’t believe so. But what exactly will happen next? Will users carry on in their usual platforms consuming whatever an algorithm serves them, or will they become frustrated and seek out new alternatives to regain their voice? Will we be able to recover the concept of reality, or will it become distorted by generative AI to fit the point of view of each separate individual?

We believe that out of the ruble of the platforms of the current establishment, better systems will rise. They might resemble their predecessors, but will be ultimately unrecognizable. Content will remain their most valuable asset, but the interfaces as we know them will likely merge or vanish. Online culture, user reputation, data ownership, and accountability will become paramount features in the next iteration of the web. How the next destination in our online evolution looks like is uncertain, but the journey ahead is far too intriguing to allow it go unnoticed.

Thus, out of the chaos of the cycle of destruction and innovation, this workshop is born.

Ketzal Co. is a web3 analytics outlet that was created out of our curiosity to observe and record the paradigm shift we are experiencing in the online world, both as individuals and sovereign communities. Our goal is to track and analyze the evolution of the web and social networks as well as how we, as individuals, interact with each other through them. We follow the adoption of web3 products and their inevitable junction with AI technology. We witness the creation of network states as they gain power and social relevance, enabled by censorship resistant, decentralized blockchains.

We take a data first approach to look at permissionless networks and we will study their applications. By gaining an understanding of how new online communities grow and govern themselves, we hope to contribute in building a better web. It is our belief that the only way of elevating our online culture is by making better products that can provide users a richer, more productive experience. The only way of phasing out the social platforms and the misinformation agents that hold us back is by making them obsolete.

We're entering an era of infinite voices and endless content. Countless realities will be formed based on derivative facts and persuasion tactics. Where we choose to go from here and what masters we will serve in this new world is completely up to ourselves.

Information is power. The time is now.