CONSUMER APPS
THE NEW ALPHA?
Anyone spending a significant amount of their time on Crypto Twitter will have noticed the recent shift in narrative. Away from a focus on the underlying infrastructure and the never-ending discussions around differences between L2s, toward the question: who will build the apps that interact with real people?
It’s an excellent question. With every shift in the web, we’ve seen the rise of new consumer products from the rise and fall of AOL and Yahoo to marketplaces like eBay and streaming services like Netflix. Once smartphones enabled us to spend even more time online, Social Media apps like Twitter and ride-share apps like Uber took off.
But what will be the apps that bring web3 to millions of users? How can crypto deliver value to general users?
“There’s no application that we can point to and say, ‘This is general consumers using crypto and getting value out of it.’”
— Anatoly Yakovenko (Founder Solana) on 0xResearch Podcast
It’s not a coincidence. The problem arises because web3 apps have been notoriously hard to raise funds for, and blockchains simply didn’t scale to demand. Additionally, considering they all tap into the same data, what used to be a USP in web2 apps isn’t in web3.
Before exploring consumer apps, it’s worth looking at how we got here.
The Fat Protocol Thesis
Introduced in 2016 by Joel Monegro, partner at Placeholder VC, the Fat Protocol Thesis states that in web3, the value accrues to the protocol layer. He explained the value accrual to the underlying protocol with blockchain’s shared data layer and access tokens that lend themselves to speculation. In tandem, these two drive adoption, eventually culminating in the creation of apps on top of a blockchain, which increases demand for the token and, consequently, price.
He concluded that the market cap of the protocol always grows faster than the combined value of the applications built on top since the success of the application layer drives further speculation at the protocol layer.
While written before most alt L1s entered the scene, the notion that infrastructure is the most profitable investment remained. With crypto still looking for product-market-fit, selling infrastructure to businesses is a model investors and companies are familiar with from Web 2. Or, as Matti from Zee Prime put it, “With creativity and innovation in short supply, infrastructure is the default response.”
Now what?
With a vibrant Layer-2 ecosystem and Layer-1s like NEAR that actually scale, the question has shifted to what this infrastructure is good for. There are signs that web3 might be entering its app phase.
Friend tech has been widely celebrated as a consumer app that quickly engaged thousands of users and generated millions of value. However, despite that success, it’s not a consumer app that would accelerate adoption beyond the people already here.
True consumer apps go beyond imitating web2
The future of web3 consumer apps isn’t imitating what web2 has built. Instead, consumer apps will leverage crypto to create experiences that aren’t possible in web2. Make no mistake, though, this crop of apps won’t attract people with their onchain dynamics. Instead, their appeal is simply that they are cool apps and create value for their users.
Web3 consumer apps can empower their user to participate in the value they create on a platform instead of extracting it as is commonplace on Big Tech platforms. Zora is an excellent example of a protocol that distributes rewards back to the creators that make it so successful. Similarly, Friend. Tech has paid out more than $2 million to influencers on its platform.
Well-developed consumer apps enable users to be sovereign. Things earned on one app can be taken to another, thanks to self-custody and interoperability. In the context of Social, this could be a user’s reputation; in the context of games, assets that they won through gameplay.
Early examples
With the sentiment shifting toward building apps for real people (and not MEV bots), we have some early examples of what web3-enabled consumer apps could look like. Below are a few that are gaining traction:
- Courtyard: is the NFT marketplace that allows people to purchase rare Pokemon cards. To ensure that it is accessible to all, the team spent days at Pokemon events talking to non-web3 collectors
- Basepaint: is a collaborative canvas and social experience that combines collaborative creation with renowned artists. Every day, new artworks are created in a community effort.
- Farcaster: is a “sufficiently decentralized” social network that most users interact with through Warpcast, a mobile app that offers a familiar web2 experience.
- Mirror & Paragraph.xyz: are both platforms that allow writers to publish their works, and fans to collect articles as NFTs.
- Jokerace: A token-less platform for DAOs and projects to host contests that require voting.
- Unlonley: A web3 live streaming platform where users can chat, purchase streamer tokens, and bet on outcomes.
And Cosmose
No article from NEAR intern about consumer apps would be complete without the mention of Cosmose. Cosmose combines AI and retail personalization to bring recommendations to anyone’s lock screen. Their Kaikai mobile app is already used by big brands such as LVMH and L’oreal.
After swapping their payment provider stripe for NEAR, Cosmose allows users to save on each purchase they settle with the NEAR-based in-app stablecoin Kai-Ching. Eventually, they’ll also migrate data to give users actual ownership over it and the ability to decide when they want to be tracked.
Cosmose is a consumer app done right, as it seamlessly enables non-web3 users to benefit from savings offered by a crypto-based settlement system. It’ll be interesting to see how the data migration impacts user experience.
The future is apps
Let’s face it: we have infrastructure that scales (and for apps that want their own privacy settings, they can simply use their own shard); it’s time to build apps that people want because they are useful and not just because they have web3 written all over them.
NEAR has the technology to become home to consumer apps that go beyond financial use cases and speculation. With Keypom, there is tech to build amazing ticketing experiences on, and BOS could power a variety of apps that aggregate chains beyond NEAR to offer users a simple interface. In a sense, BOS lends itself to becoming a super-app once the mobile experience improves drastically (:
Src: https://x.com/dwr/status/1715471114112221635?s=20
Add to that account abstraction, meta transactions, and web2 auth, and you get the perfect basis for real consumer apps accessible to anyone.
Written by @NEAR_intern
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