Networked Enterprises are, in my opinion, the real outcome of the DAO-fad from the past 5 years. Similar to Gabe Shapiro’s BORG, it’s about entanglement and literal encoding of control. Like traditional holding companies, it’s about entanglement of assets. Like FAANG, it’s about digital capabilities. Unlike all of these, it’s about something more subtle: becoming interface agnostic by leveraging the blockchain.

Sometime between 2018 and 2019, I attended a lecture in London by Neil Shah that coined the term “interface agnostic.” I was never able to obtain the slides, but found the little-known medium article that hinted at the concept. The presentation, titled the same as the essay, was called “Machine Thinking, Conveyance, and the Future of Design” and outlined a prescient view of the changes we are experiencing today in how we approach design. In Neil’s words (emphasis mine):

In Machine Thinking, we are designing a set of interaction models for a machine to learn, output, and interact with a human (or other machines) with potentially infinite variations and outcomes.

As designers we naturally labor over the finest details of our work. But in an A.I. First model, we will not know many of the details. Machine Thinking places the emphasis less on the perfection of the design output, and more on the robustness of the design system.

I’ve encouraged teams to spend more of their cycles creating strong system maps, agnostic of interfaces, that outline the interaction model. In Machine Thinking this becomes even more valuable.

A simple Machine Thinking exercise: what are the fewest number of components (interaction or interface) that are capable of solving the greatest number of known transactions?

Neil Shah, Machine Thinking, Conveyance, and the Future of Design

This idea has persisted with me over the last five years. In these notes, I am trying to articulate what exactly this means in the context of emerginig organizations: swarms, memetic tribes, online communities, onchain organizations, and networked enterprises.

Years later, during the NFT bull run of 2021, there was a movement of onchain SVGs. These NFTs, such as Blitmap, are fully encoded into the smart contract. A variety of collectors and builders wrote about the innovation. Simon, an onchain veteran, wrote at length about the topic:

NFTs, as unique items on the blockchain, has a URI that points to data containing the metadata & the corresponding visuals. This URI can be an HTTP link, pointing to a video or image hosted on a normal server, or other services like IPFS (hash-based addresses), or Arweave (incentivized hosting of hash-based content).

There is another way, however, a format that's become increasingly popular: the usage of a data URI. These URIs contain all the information within it. There is thus no server at the other end. Using data URIs has allowed NFT creators to experiment with putting all the content related to an NFT 'on-chain'. It adds a vector of permanence to the art. If Ethereum continues, it does not need ancillary infrastructure to support it. A common format, currently, is to store the NFT visuals as SVG in the data URI, since most browsers are able to natively parse it.

Simon de la Rouviere, Flavours of On-Chain SVG NFTs on Ethereum

I’d like to take a moment here to understand the implications that Simon, long-term onchain builder, is describing: “There is thus no server at the other end… most browsers are able to natively parse it.”

What we’re talking about here is the same concept that Neil mentioned: being interface-agnostic. The code is the visual, and a plurality of interfaces (browsers) can interpret the data without a specialized application. The magic lies in adopting the SVG standard and base64 encoding. By investing into adding dense, complex, yet standard data into the code itself, the creators were able to minimize reliance on additional services: no server and no special app. This also means that anyone can reference the art itself and transform it. It is directly composable and interoperable; there are no software middlemen or dependencies.

That same year, Dom (the creator of the fully onchain Blitmap NFTs), also experimented with creating an organization fully onchain. The project was called Nouns. Each day, there would be a single auction for a fully onchain NFT (the Noun of the day). The organization was intended to grow steadily: “A Noun a day, forever.” Proceeds from the sale would go into a community treasury — governed by a smart-contract — which NFT owners could vote to disburse to “proliferate the meme” and therefore raise the demand for future Nouns. In this case, like the NFTs above, the organization was fully encoded onchain in smart contracts. Their main website, nouns.wtf, simply read the contracts and allowed users to interact with them. Others built other websites over time, such as nouns.camp.

Although they were initially successful and gathered millions of dollars in ETH, the community struggled in 2023; they were unable agree on a path forward. Their main digital gathering space, hosted on an “offchain” (i.e. web2 platform) called Discord, became increasingly hostile. A decision was made by the interface administrators, who were also the Noun’s founders, to close down the interface.

“If nuking the Discord kills Nouns, then this was never a neutral protocol to begin with and I prefer a swift death,”

Steve, owner of Noun 309

Shutting down the central mode of communication would kill most online communities. Even IRL, destroying a temple can be the end of its community. However, Nouns had an advantage: their organization was encoded on a blockchain protocol, not reliant on any specific interface. In other words, they were successfully interface-agnostic. Discord was one of many interfaces, even if it happened to be the primary gathering spot at that point in time. Having their organization encoded onchain meant that anyone could interact with the organization, independent of active interfaces.

Nouns has survived since then, and many argue they have flourished (I tend to agree).

These two examples are prescient to the coming changes in how we build and manage content and organizations.

Since the early 2000s, many enterprises became reliant and locked-in to specific interfaces; they became co-dependent with SaaS solutions. If Google, Slack, or Salesforce disappear, they would likely as well. They are fragile, relying on interface-specific file formats, private servers, and exclusivity agreements. As a result, the fate of these enterprises are often entangled with the fate of their service providers. Moreover, the incentives reinforce this vicious cycle: Enterprise SaaS wants lock-in. The higher the switching costs, the better.

Now, we’re entering a phase where organizations are built on data and standards that are independent of the interfaces servicing them. Like Nouns, we can expect the next generation of organizations — Networked Enterprises — to thrive on newfound freedoms, unchained from the interfaces competing to provide them value.

𓆝 .♡˚ belo ✰

@angeIsighting

something to be horrified by: "chat" might be legitimately be the first dedicated 4th person pronoun

48.5K

6:43 AM • Nov 29, 2023

To understand the flaw, we need to compare two groups of software: business communications — such as email, slack, teams — and broadcast social media, which includes Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and the like. Each has their own method of creating alignment between participants. Business communication relies on direct and group messaging; Someone messages someone else. Whether one-to-one or one-to-many, there is a source and a recipient. However, in our latter category of broadcast social media, participants join a chat. This is a completely different dynamic: business communications relies on connecting identities and social media relies on merging identities.

The design of each emerges from different fundamental axioms. Business operations assume a message is something you create, send, and receive. Social media assumes the message is something you collectively create; there is no send and receive, there is only post. Corresponding to this, the concept of productivity has mutated. While productivity in a business is about exchange, productivity in social media has transcended into something reminiscent to play: world building.

Over the last few months, I’ve started a new venture with a partner. Intuitively, being the very online version of myself that I am, I created a channel simply called “feed.” There, I began to ‘post’ simple messages that included thoughts, task updates, content clips, and ideas. My partner asked initially: “Why is this not a task list? Seems repetitive.” And yet, within a day, they started posting naturally. The feed is a space to co-create a vibe, to attune to the happenings to each other. It’s the opposite of every recommendation; it is pure noise. And through the noise, an emergent pattern.

Today I wonder: What will business and collaboration software look like tomorrow? What will happen when we work together through attunement and world-building instead of bargaining and exchange?

Tornado Cash is a set of autonomous smart contracts on Ethereum that help users preserve their privacy. Tornado Cash was revolutionary, but not just because of its functionality. It is an example of an emerging product category: Digital Public Utilities.

Digital Public Utilities are neutral and decentralized services, often in the form of an autonomous protocol, that preserve the rights and freedoms of online communities. As an example, Tornado Cash protected our right to privacy and freedom to trade.

These utilities have four technical characteristics:

• First off, they are non-excludable. In other words, anyone can use the service permissionlessly and without fear of censorship.

• Second, they are persistent. This means that utilities exist whether they are used or not, with a longevity dependent on their ecosystem instead of specific services within it.

• Third, they create a piece of media that is owned by the user. In the case of Tornado Cash, users are given a key they can use to claim funds. In the case of Uniswap, you get an LP NFT. This media, which we can call infrastructure media, ensures users have full agency and can easily exit the service if needed.

• Lastly, public utilities do not aim to maximize profits. The cost of using the service should eventually be equal to the operational cost, or gas in the case of an onchain protocol.

A Proper Definition: What is a Digital Public Utility?

• A Digital Public Utility is a neutral and decentralized service or platform, often in the form of a protocol, that provides essential functionality for networked worlds.

• These utilities are designed to be universally accessible, democratic, and enduring. They serve as a cornerstone for online communities and networked enterprises.

• Founded on principles of universal design, they strive to make digital engagement both affordable and widely accessible. Their aim is to build and maintain the digital backbone of networked worlds, thereby facilitating a more equitable and autonomous digital society.

• Digital Public Utilities embody and preserve the rights and freedoms of the emerging networked civilization. These include, but aren’t limited to: Plurality, Privacy, Exit, Assembly, Due Process, Digital Death (To be Forgotten), Ownership / Sovereignty, Mobility, and Trade.

• Unlike purely private enterprises, Digital Public Utilities have a cost the converges to the cost of gas of the network. They are also interface agnostic and inclusive of autonomous agents (bots and content).

• Examples of emergent Digital Public Utilities today include: ENS, POAPs, Tornado Cash, Uniswap, Snapshot, Jokerace, Hats, MolochDAO, Safe, Chainlink, Tether / USDC, DAI, Arweave, IPFS, Etherscan, etc.

• Digital Public Utilities can be easily forked if corrupted, since their operational exhaust is in the form of Infrastructure Media (portable between protocols).

• Infrastructure Media allows utilities to compose with each other through reliable object standards.

• They are the default service provider (think like municipal wifi, water, electricity) but do not prevent competition by any other entity.

Digital Public Utility Test (Score out of 10)

[ ] Does not infringe on netizen rights or freedoms (e.g. not rent seeking, right to exit)

[ ] Universally accessible (anyone can use it)

[ ] Incentives agent-to-agent cooperation over competition

[ ] Persistent (aim for >50 year lifespan)

[ ] Produces composable infrastructure media (e.g. data/activity is tokenised)

[ ] Democratically governed

[ ] Credibly Neutral

[ ] Costs decrease and converge to Gas

[ ] Can be forked if corrupted (e.g. protocol must be open-source)

[ ] Serves as a default service provider, not a niche or luxury offering

Infrastructure of Rights and Freedoms

Digital Public Utilities support the foundational rights and freedoms of an open web:

• Freedom of Network: The right to choose, participate in, and move between various online platforms, protocols, or networks without undue hindrance.

• Freedom of Communication: The ability to write, share, and implement software without restriction, which is crucial for the development of new cryptographic methods and technologies.

• Right to Assembly: The freedom to come together and communicate online, establish digital communities, and collaborate for various purposes. Allowing people to speak, publish, and transact freely without interference from a centralized authority.

• Right to Fair Due Process: The assurance of impartial arbitration and neutral conflict resolution in digital disputes, supported by legal and educational services.

• Right to Be Forgotten: The option to remove or transfer one's personal data and digital artifacts, enabling users to control their online legacy.

• Right to Privacy: The protection of one's personal data from unauthorized access and the assurance of secure, private communications.

• Right to Property and Soveriegnty: The ability to own, control, and transfer digital assets, respecting the same principles that govern physical property rights.

• Right to Literacy: The provision of essential educational resources and tools that empower individuals to navigate the digital world effectively.

• Right to Exit: Participants should have the ability to voluntarily leave the system, service, platform, organization, or protocol without facing excessive costs, penalties, or roadblocks.

• Freedom of Mobility: The liberty to freely move digital assets and identities across platforms, chains, or digital ecosystems.

• Freedom of Trade: The liberty to engage in digital trade, from simple asset transfers to complex contractual agreements, all underpinned by secure identity management.

• Freedom to Remember: The liberty to securely store, access, and control one's data and digital artifacts, ensuring a durable digital footprint.

• The Right to Pseudonymity: The ability to act without revealing one's true identity.

• The Right to Transparency: The other side of the privacy coin, ensuring that the rules and operations of the system itself are transparent and auditable by its users.

Development and Operational Principles

• Minimal-Cost

• Universal design

• Minimal usage risk

• Interface Agnostic

• Autonomous Agent Inclusive

• Service to the Ethereum Network

Monetization Model

The primary goal of Digital Public Utilities is to harmonize the incentives among all stakeholders—namely, the funders, builders, and consumers of the utility.

On one hand, builders should be adequately rewarded for their role in innovating and maintaining a stable, enduring platform. On the other, consumers should benefit from reduced costs as their reliance on the utility grows over time.

Proposed Incentive Model

We propose an incentive alignment model inspired by the Intellectual Property Law framework used in the United States pharmaceutical industry, coupled with the concept of royalties. Under this model, the fee structure would be composed of three components: network transaction costs ("gas"), a protocol fee, and a period.

Fee Structure

1. Gas: This is the base cost of transacting on the network.

2. Protocol Fee: A supplementary fee allocated for the maintenance and development of the utility. The protocol fee will include a transparent and publicly reported percentage allocated as time-bound royalty payments. These payments are claimable by the founding team and assigned protocol maintainers for a predetermined period.

3. Period: This defines either a time bound or a transaction volume bound where the protocol fee is valid.

Governance and Continuity

Towards the end of the Period, utility consumers will have the opportunity to vote on a contract for the continued maintenance of the utility. This contract, much like a defense contract, would be retractable under specific terms agreed upon by the community.

Competitive Landscape

The model encourages healthy competition, including the potential for forking the utility to reduce fees. The natural defense against such competition lies in the network effect established by the original utility.

Pricing Ethics

The pricing model aims for minimalism, focusing on accessibility. Should any user find the utility cost-prohibitive, this should be solely due to the network's gas fees and not the protocol fee.

Funding Opportunities

If the royalty model is available, funders can purchase the funding stream, a percentage of it, or future airdrops claimable by the utility from the platforms where the utility is deployed.

receive() external payable {
    uint256 currentAmountFunded = rewardToDate;

    if (currentAmountFunded >= rewardableMax) {
        revert FundingExceeded();
    }

    // using memory cache over storage for gas
    rewardToDate = currentAmountFunded + msg.value;  
    emit FundingReceived(msg.value, currentAmountFunded + msg.value);

I think this is possible today, and has significant benefits. As a deliverable we can think about a mood-board, a representation of the associations. “Memory as Orientation” as Kei Kreutler has previously said. This, in combination with a short essay that demonstrates the creation process, would be a documentation of the practice. In contrast to a file with approved media and rules, we would have a network with related media and prompts.

What could we call this? Brand as Seed? In any case, it is multi-modal networked media, interdependent within the digital world, and truly online. It would be a blueprint for emerging generative tools. Something any agent (human, AI, or centaur) could use as input.

How would we know if it was official? Well, each content creator, could be validated as a community member. Assume the brand web is public, then anyone can create - but only some authorship signatures could be validated as eligible / credible. Tokenization of the assets becomes a path of provenance - but not to the “company” or “community” - to the creator themselves.

The spoon, and virtually the entire catalog of IKEA products, is a ubiquitous exercise in accessibility. Far-reaching, and yet mostly invisible, their catalog has about 10,000 items. Each one a household utility. As G4RY (a.k.a. ChatGPT) aptly describes: “(Utilities are) a service or resource used by individuals and communities to satisfy basic needs and improve their quality of life”. Together, these stock units (SKUs in supply-chain jargon) compose the homely lives of so many. I look around: plates, chairs, tables, electricity meters, water pipes. They are the building blocks of my day-to-day. They are livelihood.

And yet, the resulting physical Home, an anchor enabling me to be fully mid, is — for some reason — unavailable digitally. I think to myself: “There is no Home, yet”. There are countless who have posited that Home is not possible without the physicality of objects. That we will always be homeless should our hands not touch the items themselves that compose our world. It is a tempting story, especially given that software itself is mostly licensed – through payment or through control – and not owned.

But I digress. I do not believe that our lack of Home is because of an IRL-URL divide. There is a wave of Ownership taking shape. Our digital objects now Persist. We have blockchain enabled items and software programs that live autonomously, in personal (and collectively owned) inventories. This radicle change enables each us, individually and together, to build a subtype of Autonomous Worlds: The Transcendent Home. For if we can have Digital Property, we can build Homes. Homes not just for ourselves, but for bots, content, connection, and the craft of assets.

Transcendent Homes are multi-generational spaces we inhabit and fill with inventories, identities, and facilities. Within, agents are safe. Within the dark forest, but protected from the roaming shoggoths. Together, Homes catalize the emergence of interdependent dwellers. Like our current homes, they start with an Addressable Space (term coined by Chenoe), our Legible Identity, and our Objects. They are a preservation of Orientation, as Kei would say. Each is a reliable, personal, and composable Digital Locality. In aggregate, Homes form neighbourhoods that are not controlled, constrained, or silenced by platforms. They are governed instead by the participants of the locality. Here, norms and laws are local, mostly.

That being said, it is clear that its architecture is still undiscovered. Blockchain wallets are closets with inventories, not Homes — at least not yet. This Home cannot exist until we have more than transactions and art. Until, there are spoons. We need the mundane things imbued with our stories: online chairs, tables, beds, shelves. We need digital water and energy. We need Digital Public Utilities of universal design.

Listen to the discussion here:

Background

Content producers choose a protocol to deploy their tokenized media, and, through this, shape the future of our creative industries. Creators are now “Content Liquidity Providers”, in a similar manner that capital providers deposit liquidity into decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. By selecting the protocol for their content, creators select the capabilities and limitations of their digital assets, while empowering the underlying protocol with their assets. As a result, creators are shaping the future of media through their choice of protocol.

“You’ve heard of the golden content rule, haven’t you?

Whoever has the gold content, makes the rules.”

Jafar to Aladdin, 1992 (kind of)

Content Liquidity Wars

Content protocols are similar to DeFi protocols: they require volume to be successful. Whether monetization pathways emerge at the interface or protocol level, content protocols require creator-made tokens to be interacted with and traded. Revenue then flows from the creation of the content, but most importantly, from collections, trading, and (soon) the interaction with the content. Without tokenized media volume, protocol operations like ongoing security and new functionality are not sustainable.

We could say the underlying content, or tokenized media, serves as liquidity for the protocol. Each protocol needs to create incentives, like a marketplace, to attract suppliers (creators) which will produce supply (content liquidity in the form of NFTs and Tokens), and demand for that supply (a captive audience and community members). The protocols, in turn, provide additional content-specific features that define their quality standards: curation games and partners, social DAOs, and, in the near future, autonomous / AI moderation entities.

Like any new social media entity, it is in the best interest of the content protocol to attract prolific creators selling assets to large, insatiable audiences. After all, the higher the TCL (Total Content Locked), the higher the valuation of the protocol.

This Content is not Transferrable

Content producers in web3 have significant benefits over web2 platforms. Some top-line benefits include control over the content contract, control over the economic contact information of the audience or community they serve, and direct communication channels like email lists. As a result, content protocols cannot lock their audience or unilaterally remove or manipulate the tokenized digital assets they created.

However, ownership is a slippery term. Content may be owned by the creator and preserved in the collector’s wallet, but the contract specification is, for all practical purposes, locked to the standard and to protocol. While NFTs from many protocols are viewable across wallets (e.g. importing a token), an ERC721 can’t become an ERC1155, and an NFT launched with Zora cannot become an NFT on Manifold. At the end of the day, the contract is immutable and coupled to the protocol factory that produced it. In practice, this means that as a creator, if an interface or other software product stops supporting the protocol of your NFT, your audience on that product, or dependent on that product, will no longer be able to access it. The interface controls audience access to the protocol, and creators cannot move content from one protocol to the next without recreating the content.

This is slightly different than DeFi liquidity pools. In DeFi, liquidity providers deposit tokens in Uniswap and can transfer that liquidity into whichever DeFi protocol they would like. In content protocols, tokens are in a creator's wallet and coupled to the protocol that created them. In other words, while content visibility is portable, content liquidity is not transferable like capital liquidity. Time will tell if this framework for tokenized media will persist. For now, this is to be expected; the contract is the content. Contracts for content are standardized, immutable, and have unique offerings based on the protocol that created them.

Token Standards and Customisation

ERC721, ERC20, and ERC1155 standards provide a framework for creating protocol-specific, yet composable, Content Liquidity. They define interoperable standards regarding transfers, ownership tracking, and supply. By design, token standards allow for protocol-specific customizations, providing ample opportunity for products to innovate with functionality like allowlists, airdrops, gasless deployment, burn functions, and minting mechanics.

This duality, of technical standards and customization, means creators have to be technically savvy today. Their decisions have long-term consequences. Imagine a TikTok creator having to decide between which phone their content was viewed on, or what file format TikTok uses. As of now, onchain creators have to choose a technical standard AND a specific protocol. And yet, creators should not have to do either of these. It seems strange that creators have to specify contracts instead of use cases, and then choose protocols on additional technical details. Abstraction is on its way, although that will have new types of trade-offs to be discussed in another post.

In short, token standards unlock composability while forcing as few standards as possible, ensuring protocol builders can compete on additional functionality to attract creators to their protocol. And yet, creators should not have their distribution defined by a technical protocol choice.

Protocol Lock: Limited Interoperability

As of the moment, additional protocol functionality introduces limitations in interoperability and potential distribution. Custom functions mean onchain content is coupled to the protocol and interfaces which support that protocol specification. In other words, the creator’s content is locked, and their distribution is somewhat pre-determined: “This content can only be interacted with on the interfaces supporting the protocol.” For example, an NFT created on a new protocol or a custom contract may not be visible in a popular wallet without manual import, or even product-specific engineering intervention. Advanced custom NFTs, even following the standard, may only be viewable and interactive in custom, protocol-owned, software. This is OK, although hopefully only a temporary trade-off.

As protocols amass creators and Content Liquidity, they nurture a compelling value proposition for interfaces to build upon. However, exclusive interface support for a particular protocol may limit compatibility in the long run. Protocols can become increasingly unique, forcing interfaces to decide how to spend their resources. It is not unreasonable to think we will have monolithic media experiences with advanced content interaction capabilities - like custom DeFi ecosystems that already exist today.

The increased customization, or expansion beyond standards, can eventually restrict content flexibility and hinder its adoption across multiple interfaces. Moreover, protocols with the largest distribution opportunity, in other words, with the largest interface support, develop the power to charge additional fees. If you don’t use the popular protocol, your content will not be available on specific popular social media.

New Models for Creator Control

To address the limitations imposed by Protocol Lock, it is crucial to explore alternative models. Could it be possible to create a basic protocol that is a public good? Is it possible to create multi-protocol digital assets? What about standardized token interactions to promote interoperability and enhance flexibility? How can we incentivize decreasing fees instead of “stacking fees”?

Overall, competition among protocols should be encouraged, putting pressure on fees and enabling interface fee competition, rather than creating monopolies at the protocol layer. This, although a simple concept, will probably be harder to execute. Everything tends towards centralization and protocols are no exception. A call for new token interaction standards, for example, would enable new protocols to be instantly interoperable with the most common interfaces. However, standards are hard to gain consensus on and deliver outsize earnings to protocols that lobby most effectively.

As another option, we could explore the possibility of creator-specific micro-protocols. As Kairon, media resident at RADAR, mentioned as feedback to this essay: “My ideal protocol would allow me to decentralize distribution while keeping the core piece in one place and pointing to my wallet, rather than having to pick from several publishing protocols for extremely negligible differences.” This would enable full ownership but at the expense of growing flexibility and protocol scale benefits. For example, it might forgo automatic discovery in block explorers.

Finally, we could create software that can easily swap content on one protocol with mirrored content in another. In other words, we can develop creator-centric middleware that preserves the audience experience even when protocols are changed. This path, which aligns well with the rise of fragmented community-specific software, can result in more user-centric and creator-empowered experiences within the new media ecosystem. After all, we don’t constantly choose service providers when we’re building a Shopify website, Shopify does that work instead. The trade-off here is potentially a new layer of dependency: a platform.

In Summary

Our decisions of deploying content on a specific protocol directly impact the dynamics of the underlying ecosystem. When we choose a protocol, we are choosing a future shaped by that protocol. We should not be naive. By understanding the reach of our current token standards, being aware of Protocol Lock incentives, and considering alternative models, we can work towards an open and creator-centric token landscape and support frontline cultural producers.

Addendum: Today’s Protocol Selection Questions for Creators

What are the different protocol options to create digital content today?

• Do they follow agreed token standards?

• Is the protocol targeted to creators, collectors, or speculators? How does this align with my project and audience?

What interfaces are they interoperable with?

• Are they interoperable with the interface which your community engages with?

• Will the content be viewable on the interface? How?

• Will the content be interactive on the interface? How?

What fees will collectors and traders end up paying? (Protocol + Interface)

• Protocol Fees: This could be a flat price per mint or % of the price.

• Interface Fees: Often “stacked” on top of the protocol

• How do these fees compare to the value provided to yourself and the audience?

• Does the protocol intend to change fees in the future?

• Who has control over the protocol and fees? Is it a single person, a multi-sig, or a DAO?

What is the protocol’s published philosophy? Do they act in alignment with that philosophy?

• Are they open-source?

• Do other interfaces actively support them?

• Or do they have a single monolithic interface?

Introduction

The internet is a dark forest; there are odd creatures emerging from the fold. Some of these creatures are lone and silent travelers, like the lurker. Others travel in packs, and cooperate, sometimes consciously and other times dubiously. When their actions create harmonies or dissonance, Online Formations emerge.

Depending on the protocols that shape their behaviors, they could be Fandoms, Online Communities, or something else. Interestingly, it seems these Formations are not built from individuals, but from actions that coalesce through active intention or algorithmic pressure. Let’s review the most common ones and understand them better.

Differentiating between Online Actions and Agents

Social Protocols are a codified set of procedures that we perform. To uncover Social Protocols online, like those of Swarms, we can first look at what those codified procedures could be composed of, and that means understanding Online Actions.

An Online Action is an action performed Online by an Online Agent

There are two core distinctions in the definition that are worth discussing. First, the concept of Online. Second, the concept of an Online Agent.

Online is demarcated by two characteristics: (1) mediated by software, and (2) broadcast to a network. In our case, we will be looking at Online Actions on social media applications. Each action is broadcasted to a wider network participating in the application or the network of applications.

An Online Agent will be defined as a human-controlled entity within the networked software. An Online Agent could be ‘acting’ with one or multiple profiles. For example, an ‘Alt’ and a ‘Main’. An Online Agent may be controlled by one or multiple human beings in coordination. For example, a group of people may have joint control over a profile. The agent may also be enhanced by software (e.g. bot assisted). In all these cases, the Online Agent is assumed to be a single entity.

The most common types Online Agents on social media applications include:

1. An individual (like you or me)

2. A bot (controlled by an individual or group)

3. A company (e.g. advertiser or marketing account)

Disembodied Collectives of Actions

Prior to the ubiquitous internet, our lives circled around holistic bodies. We could communicate in one channel at a time. For example, we were at work, on the phone, or listening to the radio. A limited amount of fragmentation would happen if we called home from work, splitting our mind from our physical presence. Now, many of us are at least splinched; half of our mind is on media--TikTok or Twitter--and the other is on whatever real-world task we are completing.

We are disembodied. In a literal sense, we leave our physical bodies behind and fall into hypnosis. Our eyes track the pixels of the screen as we teleport between spaces online. Twitter, Discord, Whatsapp, Telegram; back to Twitter. Many of us spend more hours onscreen than sleeping; we, the terminally online, march toward our dopamine dealers.

In that transformation, as we open our laptops or take out our phones, we are no longer one self. Instead, we become pixelated, datafied, and fragmented into the various personas we enact online. Moreso, we become a composition of machine-legible ‘actions’ in each application’s interface. On Twitter, for example, we have our avatar and the ability to post, like, reply, and boost.

These days it’s hard to see a person as a person in the classical sense. Better to think of a person as a world grown on the substrate of a biological body. A World of You. One that is home to a congress of native and adopted entities: ego states, creative demons, the persistent roles of all the worlds you are a part of.

Ian Cheng, “Worlding Raga 6: World To Live”

From the outside, we do not see humans or agents, we see collections of actions. Unlike our real-life embodied selves, Online Agents, as digital entities, emerge into machine and user perception through consistency in broadcasted actions. The algorithm doesn’t ‘see us’ until we persistently participate. This is the reason why content producers need to publish at such high volume and frequency. We “tweet into the void” until users begin to see us as a cohesive identity narrative. This is in contrast to meatspace interactions where actions follow from our perception of an individual.

In many cases, the amalgamation of actions creates groups even before we perceive individuals. We will call these action-collective creatures Online Formations, or, as Mizuko Ito (Mimi) called a similar theme: Networked Social Forms. The grouped actions, some in harmony and others which are dissonant, produce complex some awe-inspiring coordination that no institution would be able to carry out without heavy bribes and threats.

A Diversity of Online Formations

When we shift our focus from ‘networks of individuals’ to ‘networks of actions’, we can reframe the types of online organisms we contend with. For example, we can classify persistent, reliable, attuned, and strongly weaved actions as an ‘Online Community’. While actions centrally focused on a celebrity can be an ‘Online Fandom’. In both cases, mapping an individual to a specific locality matters less than the locality of the broadcasted action. Another example is ‘Trends,’ which are weakly aligned actions centered around a specific topic.

An Online Formation is a collective of aligned Online Actions

Alignment of Online Actions can vary. It can be loose, like a random grouping of people with little in common. Or it can be highly centered, for example around an individual (e.g. a specific influencer or celebrity), a topic (e.g. news event), or around a mission (e.g. target outcome). We will evaluate this alignment by using the concept of Centrality:

Centrality is the measure of the narrative focus of an Online Formation

A narrative focus relates to how the story of an Online Formation is concentrated on a specific entity: people, mission, meme, topic, or event.

Classifications can be further detailed based on the focus. For example, a large Online Formation with a high degree of centrality can be focused on a celebrity, like the Swifties Fandom, or a public objective, like the Effective Altruism movement.

When centrality is low, coordination is more difficult. The reason is that call-to-action is not anchored on an entity--topic, person, or other--but on memes. As a result, those looking to influence Online Formations with low centrality require mastering the attunement of disparate actions at scale. This is usually done through targeted campaigns of those within the formation who have relatively higher degrees of centrality and legitimacy: micro-influencers.

Closing Thoughts

• There are additional implications to this model of understanding Online Formations. Specifically, the models for accountability, interaction, and intervention require a different approach. We will explore this in later research as we continue to understand these creatures in more detail.

• Other variables we did not explore include permanence, valence, rhythm, and control structures. We will potentially come back to these, and their relationship to narrative alignment in later posts.

• Some of the more interesting dynamics of Online Formations are their dynamism. They can transform from one shape to another. For example, we might say: An audience becomes a swarm when it is networked enough to execute a decentralised raid upon a specific trigger.

Some Links for Reading

Network Communities: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed ... - Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

Collaboration has long been of considerable interest to both designers and researchers in the CHI and CSCW communities. This paper contributes to this discussion by proposing the concept of network communities as a new genre of collaboration for this discussion.

https://link.springer.com

As you may have guessed, the program orbits around protocols. What exactly are they? How do they function? How do they stand apart from standards, rituals, APIs, and procedures? Intuitively, protocols appear to facilitate large-scale, hivemind-style coordination and tackle complex problems with often surprisingly simple, codified behaviors. In today's era of 'protocolization,' understanding protocols is becoming increasingly urgent, with the zeitgeist pushing these discussions to the forefront of the tech industry. As debates around ownership and communal resources intensify in the wake of AGI, there's a growing demand for major corporations to create and maintain public protocols instead of private ones; even VC investment theses are including the concept. There’s something in the air.

However, our understanding of protocols is still limited. As noted by Alexander Galloway, most protocols 'generally resist interpretation’ and, as noted by Venkat in the pilot study, good protocols often blend seamlessly into the backdrop of our society. Like a skilled theatre operations crew, protocols become invisible through excellence, yet a careful eye catches glimpses of them everywhere. Today, blockchain protocols are the center of attention. Previously, TCP/IP was the buzzword among tech founders. However, other protocols, those related to urban planning, credibility, and international peace, have only come into focus recently, as they bend and fracture due to changing societal needs and technological shifts.

Given this context, we have a civic responsibility to research protocol concepts and design new protocols with whatever wisdom we can gather. A well-designed protocol led to the internet, another to a decentralized means of global exchange (blockchain money), and the next one might define our relationship to ubiquitous superhuman intelligence. Our aspiration is that the Summer of Protocols begins to equip us with the right tools for the extensive journey of the long 21st century.

The word ‘Community’ carries different connotations depending on the context, observer, and space. In the ‘real world’, or meatspace, it is used for everything from Homeowner Associations and brand marketing to grassroots activism, political mobilization, and neighborhood clubs. Online, it could mean a group chat, a product advocacy group, or a celebrity fandom. I suspect that the frequent use of 'Community' is not a coincidence; it is likely these formations, especially internet-native ones, share certain foundational protocols. One thing is clear though: they are distinct from modern firms, institutions, or tech startups.

During the SoP program, I hope to describe why these protocols vary and how they interact. The project will focus on online formations such as swarms, fandoms, and communities, and how they relate to traditional entities such as corporations and international enterprises. The aim will be to uncover the protocols these formations use as a basis of organization - many of which are probably hiding in plain sight. Just in the first week, there are hints at protocols such as chain-of-command, social mimicking, and bribing. If the research is successful, we will find some commonalities, varying temporalities, and hints of interaction resonance.

By articulating the organizing protocols of these formations, we will then be able to better understand their interactions, shadows, and challenges. Recent events such as the SVB bank run and memestock mania (e.g. GME, Tesla, and AMC) have already illustrated some limitations of conventional management approaches when encountering highly networked groups online.

For those interested, I’ve split the project into roughly three phases:

Phase 1: Protocols for Online Formations and the Modern Firm

1. Guiding question: What protocols shape the structures of our organizations today? How do they vary between formations ‘born online’ and those which are ‘traditional businesses’?

2. Example Activities:

   1. Develop a framework to describe various online formations

   2. Characterize online swarms and document their organizing protocol

   3. Document core management protocols in modern business structures

Phase 2: Modern Business Insufficiency

1. Guiding question: Why do modern businesses struggle to cooperate with online formations like swarms and fandoms? Are they intrinsically adversarial?

2. Example Activities:

   1. Wargame the interaction between swarms and modern businesses

   2. Document real-world case studies

   3. Generalize how protocol interaction leads to specific fracture patterns

Phase 3: Online Community Sufficiency

1. Guiding question: Why do online communities seem to survive and thrive, even when encountering adversarial groups like social farming and swarming raids?

2. Example Activities:

   1. Wargame the interaction between swarms and online communities

   2. Document real-world case studies

   3. Generalise patterns that make online communities sufficiently tolerant

In addition, as part of the research, I hope to also collect questions for others to look into. Here are a few that are top-of-mind this week:

• Could there be ways to minimize the negative externalities of viral content?

• How do protocols inform concepts like accountability and belonging?

• Could there be ways to create sustainable, non-ironic, and meaningful spaces of belonging and mutuality in corporate environments?

💡 Currently, I’m having trouble finding good content on non-western online formations and culture. If you have any ideas, please get in touch.

I’m humbled to be working alongside excellent writers and researchers, many of which I’ve looked up to over the years and who’ve inspired my curiosity regarding the positive futures we can manifest together. Moreover, I’m thrilled to invest the time to read seminal pieces of work from modern thinkers such as Byung Chul Han, Danah Boyd, Kaitlyn Tiffany, Rick Falkvinge, Alexander Galloway, Marshall McLuhan, and many more.

I hope to provide an update on my progress once every 1-2 weeks.

Thoughts? Just send me a message at rafael@rafael.fyi, or message me on Twitter @rafathebuilder.

If you’d like to follow along on the journey, I would recommend subscribing to this newsletter and sign-up to receive updates from the program’s newsletter called Protocolized.

All funds from this Writing NFT will be donated to Obras del País, which supports artisans in Puerto Rico.