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I don't disagree with the pragmatic "moment in time" accounting and uncharitable view of this failed exercise that I am seeing reported (and in the comments).

I don't disagree with the pragmatic "moment in time" accounting and uncharitable view of this failed exercise that I am seeing reported (and in the comments). What feels missed, however, in these critiques is the recognition of the pure, unadulterated "product market fit" that is being signaled by crypto, DAOs, etc. Nearly 18,000 people, over a week, were hell bent on participating in this DAO and found a way to put up $$$. Users struggled through broken ass alpha-release-level tools available to them to participate, forewent concerns about taxation, ownership, environment etc Reacting with satisfaction about this failed outcome misses the opportunity to discuss and understand the pent-up demand and desire to rewrite the rules around ownership & sovereignty that critics dismiss as secondary to pyramiding / exit scamming / etc.

cl42 5y ago
100% agree with you. Crypto is as much, if not more, a social movement than a pure technology solution at this stage. Whether or not the blockchain, tokens, DAOs, etc. are the "right" approach to things, the fact that there are millions of users and many who are coming up with ideas, building products, etc. is something that is hard to ignore. I was in the Discord group for Constitution DAO and it was really interesting to observe how excited, hopeful, and positive about the future people were. I think the world needs that, especially post-COVID.
- dimgl 5y ago
  I'm not entirely sure I agree with you. Just because something gives people purpose doesn't mean it's positive... You can be excited, hopeful and positive about something that provides very little value.
  - cl42 5y ago
    I don't think any of us can say whether any technology or product is inherently good, but if millions of people are using it, are happy doing so, and they say it's good for them, then that sounds pretty nice to me. I've heard similar arguments about movies and video games in the past, and it's never that clear cut.
- smt88 5y ago
  > the fact that there are millions of users and many who are coming up with ideas, building products, etc. is something that is hard to ignore I think most people's interest in crypto begins and ends at "you can get insane returns". It's gambling or FOMO for most people. The excited builders are very more sparse (try to find anyone building on or even talking about Dfinity for evidence). I'm not saying it'll never change, but right now there's no ecosystem for blockchain outside of NFTs and coins.
  - cl42 5y ago
    Yes, I also agree with this. 98% of this is a mess, but when you get into some of these communities, DAOs, etc. there is a certain level of excitement that reminds me of the Internet in 2002.
- propogandist 5y ago
  >Crypto is as much, if not more, a social movement than a pure technology solution at this stage. you mean the HODL crowd that's constantly pumping alt-coins? there are huge communities around that; nothing in crypto seems to be about the technology as of late
- pavlov 5y ago
  QAnon also made millions of people excited, hopeful, and positive about the future. Any moment now, the truth would be revealed to all, the clouds would part and everyone's life would be changed forever. Making people feel good on the short term is not a justification for anything. We need to focus on solving the real problems, not selling crypto opium to those who have lost hope.
  - cl42 5y ago
    With this sort of logic, should we get rid of movies that we deem unproductive? Burn books that don't explicitly contribute to the human race? Ban video games that promote values we disagree with? There are entire industries designed to make people feel good and do nothing else. If you're equating crypto with QAnon then I don't think there's much room for debate here.
    - pavlov 5y ago
      Yeah, I'm totally advocating burning books because I think it's not a great idea to get your hopes up when you send money to some random guy's Delaware company that was started yesterday. Crypto is not QAnon (although they do share general cultish traits). I was using Q as an extreme example of another online movement that also gave hope to people hanging out in forums.
jjcon 5y ago
> pent-up demand and desire to rewrite the rules around ownership & sovereignty Can you expand on this? I've never seen these things as anything new just the same old get rich quick stuff we've seen forever but this has me curious.
- cl42 5y ago
  Two areas stand out to me personally: 1. Gaming. There are a lot of interesting games now where people own assets (sort of like trading cards), characters in the games, and get compensated for how they contribute to the games. This is a very interesting model, and some of the games have millions of DAUs... And that's millions of DAUs while the tools to buy the tokens to play the games are still very difficult to obtain for some people. 2. DAOs. The level of interaction and excitement around people discussing how to govern their communities in a healthy, scalable way is something I've never seen in social media... This doesn't even involve money/crypto changing hands -- it's about using voting tokens, bots, and creative rule making to make organizations and communities grow and scale inclusively and in a way that doesn't have a centralized authority making decisions (in contrast to say, Facebook). If you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend joining a few Discord channels for DAOs.
  - gizmo385 5y ago
    I personally never see the gaming use cases for this going mainstream. The bigger players in this right now (ex: Axie) are super exploitative l, especially of poorer individuals and its business model reeks of a pyramid scheme. As for the broader ideas, I don't think the incentives line up. What incentive does a video game developer, especially a large one, have to support any of this? And how would it actually work beyond gimmicky pyramid scheme games like Axie?
    - cl42 5y ago
      Maybe I misread you, but why would a larger video game developer need to support an industry to lend it credibility? Most web 2.0 companies don't support web3, and most web3 community members would argue that this is because web3 directly threatens the web 2.0 business model. I could spend all day on Facebook making stupid posts, or play Axie Infinity and maybe make some money. Which one is worse?
wonderwonder 5y ago
so many people are just looking to belong to something now. Society at least in the US has lost its sense of togetherness and belonging so many people have no real life friends and spend the vast majority of their time online. Its a society wide issue and this is a symptom. Good for them for getting some sense of joy or excitement from this.
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
From my pro-crypto viewpoint, this was the outcome I hoped for. Raised a very credible amount of money from a large number of donors in a very short period of time, which shows the potential. And Sotheby's was willing to work with the group and confirmed their ETH address as proof of funds (you can't just show up and bid at the highest end auctions, you have to prove you can pay if you win). That's all very legitimizing. And the concept of a DAO has gotten massive exposure, which is great. But without the messy administration woes a win would have entailed, and which no doubt would have led to disagreements and bitterness. And which, frankly, DAOs are not yet ready to handle. The frameworks just aren't there for it. DAOs are fine for experimental use with cryptofolk who are used to the chaos, but it's not time for the normies yet. It's too early for a particularly adhoc dao to deal with the masses. As long as the funds are returned promptly, this was the ideal outcome from my view.
deleted 5y ago
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cl42 5y ago

100% agree with you. Crypto is as much, if not more, a social movement than a pure technology solution at this stage. Whether or not the blockchain, tokens, DAOs, etc. are the "right" approach to things, the fact that there are millions of users and many who are coming up with ideas, building products, etc. is something that is hard to ignore. I was in the Discord group for Constitution DAO and it was really interesting to observe how excited, hopeful, and positive about the future people were. I think the world needs that, especially post-COVID.

dimgl 5y ago
I'm not entirely sure I agree with you. Just because something gives people purpose doesn't mean it's positive... You can be excited, hopeful and positive about something that provides very little value.
- cl42 5y ago
  I don't think any of us can say whether any technology or product is inherently good, but if millions of people are using it, are happy doing so, and they say it's good for them, then that sounds pretty nice to me. I've heard similar arguments about movies and video games in the past, and it's never that clear cut.
smt88 5y ago
> the fact that there are millions of users and many who are coming up with ideas, building products, etc. is something that is hard to ignore I think most people's interest in crypto begins and ends at "you can get insane returns". It's gambling or FOMO for most people. The excited builders are very more sparse (try to find anyone building on or even talking about Dfinity for evidence). I'm not saying it'll never change, but right now there's no ecosystem for blockchain outside of NFTs and coins.
- cl42 5y ago
  Yes, I also agree with this. 98% of this is a mess, but when you get into some of these communities, DAOs, etc. there is a certain level of excitement that reminds me of the Internet in 2002.
propogandist 5y ago
>Crypto is as much, if not more, a social movement than a pure technology solution at this stage. you mean the HODL crowd that's constantly pumping alt-coins? there are huge communities around that; nothing in crypto seems to be about the technology as of late
pavlov 5y ago
QAnon also made millions of people excited, hopeful, and positive about the future. Any moment now, the truth would be revealed to all, the clouds would part and everyone's life would be changed forever. Making people feel good on the short term is not a justification for anything. We need to focus on solving the real problems, not selling crypto opium to those who have lost hope.
- cl42 5y ago
  With this sort of logic, should we get rid of movies that we deem unproductive? Burn books that don't explicitly contribute to the human race? Ban video games that promote values we disagree with? There are entire industries designed to make people feel good and do nothing else. If you're equating crypto with QAnon then I don't think there's much room for debate here.
  - pavlov 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm totally advocating burning books because I think it's not a great idea to get your hopes up when you send money to some random guy's Delaware company that was started yesterday. Crypto is not QAnon (although they do share general cultish traits). I was using Q as an extreme example of another online movement that also gave hope to people hanging out in forums.

jjcon 5y ago

> pent-up demand and desire to rewrite the rules around ownership & sovereignty Can you expand on this? I've never seen these things as anything new just the same old get rich quick stuff we've seen forever but this has me curious.

cl42 5y ago
Two areas stand out to me personally: 1. Gaming. There are a lot of interesting games now where people own assets (sort of like trading cards), characters in the games, and get compensated for how they contribute to the games. This is a very interesting model, and some of the games have millions of DAUs... And that's millions of DAUs while the tools to buy the tokens to play the games are still very difficult to obtain for some people. 2. DAOs. The level of interaction and excitement around people discussing how to govern their communities in a healthy, scalable way is something I've never seen in social media... This doesn't even involve money/crypto changing hands -- it's about using voting tokens, bots, and creative rule making to make organizations and communities grow and scale inclusively and in a way that doesn't have a centralized authority making decisions (in contrast to say, Facebook). If you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend joining a few Discord channels for DAOs.
- gizmo385 5y ago
  I personally never see the gaming use cases for this going mainstream. The bigger players in this right now (ex: Axie) are super exploitative l, especially of poorer individuals and its business model reeks of a pyramid scheme. As for the broader ideas, I don't think the incentives line up. What incentive does a video game developer, especially a large one, have to support any of this? And how would it actually work beyond gimmicky pyramid scheme games like Axie?
  - cl42 5y ago
    Maybe I misread you, but why would a larger video game developer need to support an industry to lend it credibility? Most web 2.0 companies don't support web3, and most web3 community members would argue that this is because web3 directly threatens the web 2.0 business model. I could spend all day on Facebook making stupid posts, or play Axie Infinity and maybe make some money. Which one is worse?

wonderwonder 5y ago

so many people are just looking to belong to something now. Society at least in the US has lost its sense of togetherness and belonging so many people have no real life friends and spend the vast majority of their time online. Its a society wide issue and this is a symptom. Good for them for getting some sense of joy or excitement from this.

TigeriusKirk 5y ago

From my pro-crypto viewpoint, this was the outcome I hoped for. Raised a very credible amount of money from a large number of donors in a very short period of time, which shows the potential. And Sotheby's was willing to work with the group and confirmed their ETH address as proof of funds (you can't just show up and bid at the highest end auctions, you have to prove you can pay if you win). That's all very legitimizing. And the concept of a DAO has gotten massive exposure, which is great. But without the messy administration woes a win would have entailed, and which no doubt would have led to disagreements and bitterness. And which, frankly, DAOs are not yet ready to handle. The frameworks just aren't there for it. DAOs are fine for experimental use with cryptofolk who are used to the chaos, but it's not time for the normies yet. It's too early for a particularly adhoc dao to deal with the masses. As long as the funds are returned promptly, this was the ideal outcome from my view.

deleted 5y ago

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