1 sat \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 25 Sep 2021 \ parent \ on: Ask SN: Advice on improving SN's pitch deck bitcoin
Wanted to circle back here.
I'm not trying to draw a through-line between reputation and money as much as I am comparing a game theory matrix. Staking money is better than nothing for encouraging good behavior. More below.
Reputation is valuable in person, wouldn't you agree? There's a reason we save our obscenity shouting for online communities. There's a disconnect between real world and online reputation, especially anonymous communities. Online reputation matters less, a bad online reputation "costs" less, than in person reputation. I think money can make it cost at least as much as the staking costs in person. There are differences between money and reputation though obviously and the value of each is subjective.
How do you think about this in the context of Clubhouse? I believe their exclusive invite system was at least half of the reason they grew so fast. Invites became scarce and valuable so people were eager to send them and to beg for them. It's counter-intuitive but the effects of closing something off can make it grow faster.
I like this idea too.
Reputation is valuable in person, wouldn't you agree? There's a reason we save our obscenity shouting for online communities. There's a disconnect between real world and online reputation, especially anonymous communities. Online reputation matters less, a bad online reputation "costs" less, than in person reputation. I think money can make it cost at least as much as the staking costs in person. There are differences between money and reputation though obviously and the value of each is subjective.
I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. I believe Facebook and Twitter are better than other communities (4chan, say) because they have reputation tied to the profile. That is, the requirement of Facebook and Twitter to associate your real world identity with your online profile does dis-incentivize bad behavior. Yet, even with FB and especially with Twitter, people do behave very badly online.
I'm saying, associating your real world identity with your online profile isn't enough to disincentivize bad behavior. My belief is that the online identity, even when it's associated with your real world one, is still anonymous enough to embolden people to behave badly.
I guess I'm making a subtle argument. You're saying Bitcoin brings online identity to the internet. I'm saying a) that's not what's going on, it's bringing personal economic incentives to the internet and b) regardless, online reputation isn't enough.
In my view, microtransactions, implemented by Bitcoin, say, provide a potentially much stronger forcing function for people to behave well. If behaving badly on the internet costs you money, people tend to be strongly dis-incentivized from behaving as such.
How do you think about this in the context of Clubhouse? I believe their exclusive invite system was at least half of the reason they grew so fast. Invites became scarce and valuable so people were eager to send them and to beg for them. It's counter-intuitive but the effects of closing something off can make it grow faster.
I don't claim to have a big understanding of the "exclusive = value" proposition goes, and I'm certainly don't know anything about Clubhouse, but I will point out there's a difference between "exclusivity" and "inclusive but intentional".
Studio 54 was exclusive. It was a status symbol to be able to get in. I imagine the value only increased once they were able to get higher status celebrities coming, further fueling the perception of value. Someone getting into Studio 54 might have the perception of their social standing or "class" raised because they were allowed into the same space as celebrities. In this context, the exclusivity signals a status symbol.
Contrast this with the Bitcoin community. It's "exclusive" in the sense it takes a lot of domain knowledge, time, effort and probably some thick skin, depending on which community you access. The exclusivity, at least in part, comes from the difficulty of learning and understanding, not something synthetic, in my opinion. I would categorize this more as "inclusive but intentional", in that the community is intentionally filtering for people who are interested in Bitcoin but otherwise actively encouraging people to participate.
My understanding of Clubhouse was that it was kind of the "GMail" model...offer something very nice to a few people, allow them to invite their friends but otherwise don't do a large marketing push. If I were to make a guess, I would say that Clubhouse offered a good service (Zoom but without the friction?) and used viral/grass roots/word of mouth to do their marketing, just like GMail, and that the exclusivity was mostly a non-factor.
My advice is to at least do some research so that you're not succumbing to some fundamental attribution error. You use Clubhouse as an example. Have you talked to the folks at Clubhouse to see what their intent with that strategy was and why they did it? Have you done research into other people who have done that model and have succeeded? Have you done research into other people who have done that model and failed? When does it work and why?
The reason I'm pushing back on this is because I've seen this reasoning and model fail many times. All my evidence is anecdotal, so I'm not in any position to say whether it works or not, in general, but I suspect the reasons why this "exclusive = value" tactic works is because the people pushing it already are celebrities, have a brand name or some other social clout that they're capitalizing on, or they draw in others who do.
Most of the time, for most people, you have to fight to promote an idea, even if it's really really good. History is littered with engineering and mathematics that were exceptional but forgotten because nobody listened to their creator, only to be picked up at some later time when someone figured out how to use it or market it well.
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