210 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 21 Sep 2023 \ parent \ on: The Origins of Value 4 Value as Far as I Can Tell bitcoin
My guess as to why bitcoiners see v4v as a breakthrough (your words not mine) is that it is a different model from the ad model. Many products for bitcoin audiences are not going to get ad funding. More importantly many bitcoiners have views that aren't "brand safe". Value 4 value is also a feedback mechanism to know if you have hit on something that resonates. You can't really get that with the ad model.
There's also this deep seated anti-capitalism thing in people. I've noticed in myself and others around me. There is a deep anti-capitalist message in our books, movies, TV, and general culture in the west. The villain is almost always a capitalist. Now, as bitcoiners we know the difference between free markets and the corporatism system called capitalism in the west but the cultural dogma is that money is evil and businessmen are greedy. When is the last time you saw a popular movie where the capitalist was the hero. There are some examples but not many.
I say that for this reason. We have a deep unease about asking for money. It varies between people but many folks I know have a very unhealthy view of money. They don't see it as a tool for exchanging value. They don't see it as tool for expressing gratitude. They don't see capitalism as a system of voluntary free trade. So v4v is a breakthrough for many and my guess is that our culture is one reason for that.
Value 4 value is also a feedback mechanism to know if you have hit on something that resonates. You can't really get that with the ad model.
Well, you can, just on a quite different timescale, and with different capex requirements, usually. But fair point.
There's also this deep seated anti-capitalism thing in people. I've noticed in myself and others around me. There is a deep anti-capitalist message in our books, movies, TV, and general culture in the west.
I think that's a good point, there is a general cultural stink to it, and there always has been, which is interesting to consider. (E.g., so many stories from the bible. Stories from classical history.)
Working hypothesis: some of this vibe comes from the fact that, psychologically, there are at least two kinds of value, as @k00b and I are discussing elsewhere in these comments, and these two values have some relationship to each other, but are not identical. And people really hate when one is mistaken for the other, but at scale, the only one that has ever worked is the market-transaction model. So people feel opposition to that, since their lives are dominated by it in a certain way.
Tyler Cowen has written an interesting book on the virtues of the corporation, to try to redeem it from villainy. Can't recall the name off the top of my head. Mises goes on and on about this too, though of course he would.
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