Reimagining Value in the Digital World — Part 1
I want to begin this post with a boring story.
A couple of weeks ago when I was at the Kin ambassador event I got up, went downstairs to the coffee shop near my hotel and ordered a double espresso. When the friendly barista rang up my order, I pulled out my credit card, paid and sat down to read the news.
Doesn’t get much more boring than that, right? So then, why tell this story?
I bring up up the coffee because it’s something so simple that you wouldn’t normally notice. Or to put this another way, we tend to only normally notice things when they’re broken. So, if I didn’t notice paying for the coffee, that means that to me, I don’t really have a problem with money. In fact, most people don’t, at least not in how it’s used. The banking system may not be perfect, and there are often unfair fees attached to transactions, but for most people living in developed economies, this is not the problem they see themselves having.
The problem with money isn’t about it’s everyday use, it’s about whether or not it’s fairly distributed. And, I think most of us know that the way the economy is set up right now, it’s not.
Much of the buzz about blockchain and cryptocurrencies has been about their ability to disrupt banks, and how, eventually, they may even come to replace fiat currencies. But as Ted Livingston, CEO of Kin and Kik, mentioned in one of his earlier talks, that’s actually not the most likely, or even best outcome. As he pointed out, if I had gone to the coffee shop this morning and tried to pay with Bitcoin, I would have had to buy it on an exchange using fiat currency, then the coffee shop would have to change it back to fiat currency. That just doesn’t make sense.
Digital cryptocurrencies will bring about a change in how we think about and create value, but that change will begin online. And, in many ways, that’s where it’s needed most.
The internet began with the promise of democratizing information, connecting people and making the economy more accessible to everyone. But over the years these high ideals have have begun to slip away. We have seen an increased amount of centralization, with only a handful of companies dominating the digital landscape. This is unfortunate because when the online world is dominated by only a few players, the result is equally bad for both businesses and users.
On the business side, even large companies that have been around for years have a difficult time monetizing, and it’s even worse for those with a small user base. Even with subscription plans and ads, many companies can barely generate enough revenue to survive, and they have to spend so much time focused on bringing in revenue that they can’t focus on what really matters — creating the best product, and amazing user experiences.
The truth is that most companies we love were created because the founders believed in an idea. Whether it is creating the best chat app, a platform for athletes to share tips and stories, a site to help women travelers connect with one another, an app to help people learn about the social impact of companies, or one of the countless other amazing ideas which have been brought into the digital world, the founders of these companies wanted to share something incredible and not spend all of their time worrying about how they are going to generate revenue.
The situation on the user side isn’t any better. Users turn to online platforms, services, and apps because they are excited about the idea, or because they somehow make their lives better. A user wants to talk to a friend across the world, or share an amazing story with their community, but to do this they often end up being treated as virtual ATMs. They are confronted with ad after ad, and have their user data mined, sold off, and used to create even more targeted ad experiences that try to get even more revenue from them.
The current situation does not foster great user experiences, nor does it lead to users feeling connected to the brands that treat them like monetary units rather than people.
The first response here is likely to be something like, “Yeah, that’s terrible, and we all know it’s happening. But what can we do about it?” The idea that the only way for developers need to make money is to monetize their users, through almost any means necessary, is so commonplace that we all have come to accept it as a given.
But here’s the thing — it’s not given. And Kin is out to create a better way that puts users and developers on the same team while cutting out the middleman. By building on the potential offered by blockchain technology, we have developed a decentralized system that isn’t about a new currency, but rather a whole new way of thinking about value.
At Kin, we view value in the same way as the entire generation of digital natives. Value comes from content, experience, and engagement. When looked at it in this way, the better the experience you create, the more value created. And, the more value you create, the more you deserve to be recognized and rewarded.
In my next post, I’ll explore how we have set out to make this change.
