Cogs in the Crypto Machine
Cogs in the crypto machine by mishaderidder.eth13093 🥝 • 1y • 0 views • 0 clicks | |
AI summary of the linked articleThe author, who spoke at a crypto event under the title "Marx for Crypto Bros," argues that crypto has adopted the same growth-at-all-costs playbook as Big Tech, turning users into addicted, mindless "cogs" through frictionless design, automation, gamification and incentives. Drawing on Marx's concept of alienation, the piece identifies three forms in crypto: alienation from the industry's original values, from one another (illustrated by a debate over tokenizing a screenshot of a woman from a dating app on Zora or pump.fun), and from human dignity. It closes with advice for humanist builders: avoid enslaving users to the product, offer real user agency, and respect user dignity. | |
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 I read all of this, including the recommendations at the end. But what do these things means SPECIFICALLY? How would I, e.g. make Kiwi more like is being recommended? Sure I could not pursue the whole (push) notifications thing. But that‘s just omission. What would be an example of acting positively on those ideas? I‘m in touch with users to a point where I feel exhausted. I listen constantly, bow down and do what they say. In fact, sometime I feel alienated from my own work because people always want more without seeing my struggle. I feel exploited by my users  I admit this was generalizing and primarily aimed at the vc-fuelled apps that tend to build under this entire idea of generating a shit ton of engagement and activity, and an attempt to bring the term alienation into the broader conversation. For Kiwi, I agree, you might listen too much and let's be real, all of us we're not "building" kiwi, we're at best using it; and all of us might have different ideas of how it should look like leading to what you describe that you're building something that isn't even yours anymore. This then, obviously is no fun at all; I can relate in as much as most my ghostwriting feels really unsatisfying to do ^^ There probably is a balance to strike with listening and building based on what one believes to be best. I would assume that also the pressure of you running it by yourself now plus whatever existence is tied to success does little to aid. I'm afraid people don't often consider such things before asking for more from a founder (a solo one at that). Online anyway, it's easy to forget we're all humans. You probably did the right thing to shut down the tg chat as it seemed to have been the one thing that would further this sense of being the one not in control, and anyway, it didn't translate to activity on here afaik. So stepping away from that for a bit probably is a healthy thing for you to do. Not gonna pretend I have the answers, I don't. Maybe one underexplored aspect of this is business models that enable projects to survive without the need for people to be hyperactive... or to scale to millions of people. So that neither founders nor users feel like they're being turned into cogs. Tbf there isn't a whole lot of examples of this in crypto to begin with.. Not gonna pretend I have the answers, I don't. Maybe one underexplored aspect of this is business models that enable projects to survive without the need for people to be hyperactive... or to scale to millions of people. So that neither founders nor users feel like they're being turned into cogs. Tbf there isn't a whole lot of examples of this in crypto to begin with.. Agree. To be honest, with the small income that we‘ve made in the past with Kiwi this seemed to be sustainable at least for some time. That said, I need to rent a bigger apartment and it is NOT looking good bc my income situation is trash. I think both Mac and I constantly felt like being underpaid a lot, especially for the risk we‘re taking. And we also felt tired by having to expose ourselves to the risk as well. But so far, with some exceptions, it has worked. For me that‘s where the desire for greater growth comes from. Just being able to sustain without losing my mind every couple of months. And frankly it‘s even hard to tell yourself that you‘re doing something useful. E.g. friends will also judge you by the engagement numbers etc. I once met Misha in Berlin and we also talked about this and he said: There‘ll always somehow be money (speaking from experience as an arist). With which I kinda agree with. In fact, I somehow identify with it. But maybe it‘s not good. I‘m not an artist 😆 Oh damn, as if finding a flat in Berlin wasn't tough enough already. T_T Haha as someone coming from two classical guitar teacher parents, miraculously they also somehow always had money (not a lot but enough for us to not starve) so there might be something to this artist life. Regarding the sustainable business part, I read this essay some time last year called "Returning to human scale" - super relevant to this but I noticed it's been paywalled now (I can send a pdf tho as I put it on my remarkable back when it was free :)) It argues that we are using the wrong scales, which might speak to the friends judging by engagement numbers. There seems to be generally highly inflated expectations in crypto, but also broadly with business and it's likely because we don't have many examples of "smaller" businesses doing just fine, serving their employees well, their leadership and all their customers. Especially not online - locally at least I can tell my local indie bookstop is a community institution, the people working there usually quite happy, so are the people and artists showing up for events or buying books. There isn't really an equivalent for that online. It argues that we are using the wrong scales, which might speak to the friends judging by engagement numbers. There seems to be generally highly inflated expectations in crypto A ton of inflated numbers. There are inflated numbers from paying users (the world coin app case), and then there are the realistically deflated numbers because only 6 people have ever exited funds from ZkSync or smth. Anyways, before Mac quit we also did some calls with investors to see kinda how the space felt. And it‘s really bleak out there. A year before or so we‘d still get a chance to be part of the Unlonely et al social apps cohort. Now it almost seems as if the space has entirely moved on. Investors don‘t see the value of e.g. a thousand MAU crypto users at all. And why? Because obviously some scammer/grifter out there will easily outbid us. Also: Bc there is an incentive to pump projects. The space is in its infancy still. Yet because people wanted to exit their coins they made big promises of how far crypto was already. And now that the cheques are cashed everyone sees the short fall. But also because many actually think that the whole decentralized social thing is basically just cooked and doesn‘t justify investing more money because it‘s not scaling. Anyways, even the „human scale“ thing is hard to make work, no? If I had 100 super engaged users, everyone would have to pay almost 30 EUR or more just to keep me afloat. Feels like a lot. And I don‘t even think we have 100 engaged people. | |
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