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Did we read the same article? They literally mention crypto in the first sentence and then approach social networking as if there's a status token that needs to

Did we read the same article? They literally mention crypto in the first sentence and then approach social networking as if there's a status token that needs to be distributed to have a working social network. No one talks like this outside of the crypto community.

ketzo 4y ago
> as if there's a status token that needs to be distributed to have a working social network I mean… empirical evidence would suggest that this is true, no? Has there ever been a popular social media/network that didn’t have a very direct form of status token?
- majormajor 4y ago
  > Social networks tend to elevate content that it expects will get attention. Doing so incentivizes a particular type of behavior that lends status to the users performing said behavior. Typically, there’s a status indicator that people have to try and accumulate. It comes in various forms – karma, follower/like counts, XP, the verified badge, leaderboards, etc. Early forums and then social networks were massively popular before getting algorithmic feeds or basically any of this stuff. Nobody was getting rich or famous off their post count. Honestly, the biggest failure of imagination here is assuming that what's really going to succeed here is a modified (with "UBI" or whatever ideas) form of the status quo. TikTok, for instance, has a wildly different interaction model than FB/Twitter-era networks completely outside of any conception of "modeling statu" in it.
demetrius 4y ago
Yeah, I was really surprised at the idea to equate the number of followers with wealth, and calculate inequality of this wealth distribution Like... Followers are people with their own agency! Even if they tend to read someone more often then the others, you can't treat this in same way as the wealth distribution
- satyrnein 4y ago
  Libertarians would argue that wealth inequality is the natural outcome of consumers exercising their agency. I recall one asking why progressives are obsessed with income equality but not trying to address inequality in number of sex partners.
notpushkin 4y ago
Yeah, it does talk of “status” as some sort of commodity. It doesn't say it should be a token (how would that be possible!), but it does indeed draw some parallels with financing, although I see even more parallels with online gaming.

ketzo 4y ago

> as if there's a status token that needs to be distributed to have a working social network I mean… empirical evidence would suggest that this is true, no? Has there ever been a popular social media/network that didn’t have a very direct form of status token?

majormajor 4y ago
> Social networks tend to elevate content that it expects will get attention. Doing so incentivizes a particular type of behavior that lends status to the users performing said behavior. Typically, there’s a status indicator that people have to try and accumulate. It comes in various forms – karma, follower/like counts, XP, the verified badge, leaderboards, etc. Early forums and then social networks were massively popular before getting algorithmic feeds or basically any of this stuff. Nobody was getting rich or famous off their post count. Honestly, the biggest failure of imagination here is assuming that what's really going to succeed here is a modified (with "UBI" or whatever ideas) form of the status quo. TikTok, for instance, has a wildly different interaction model than FB/Twitter-era networks completely outside of any conception of "modeling statu" in it.

demetrius 4y ago

Yeah, I was really surprised at the idea to equate the number of followers with wealth, and calculate inequality of this wealth distribution Like... Followers are people with their own agency! Even if they tend to read someone more often then the others, you can't treat this in same way as the wealth distribution

satyrnein 4y ago
Libertarians would argue that wealth inequality is the natural outcome of consumers exercising their agency. I recall one asking why progressives are obsessed with income equality but not trying to address inequality in number of sex partners.

notpushkin 4y ago

Yeah, it does talk of “status” as some sort of commodity. It doesn't say it should be a token (how would that be possible!), but it does indeed draw some parallels with financing, although I see even more parallels with online gaming.