An Emerging Technological Shift
The world of art has constantly adapted to new technologies. The earliest cave paintings. Renaissance sculpture. The invention of photography. The advent of radio, television, and the internet. For the 1,000th time, artists and creators once again find themselves on the brink: poised to unlock the promising potential of an emerging technological shift — Web3.
For the newcomer, Web3 encompasses words you may have heard, like cryptocurrency, NFTs, the blockchain, and the Metaverse. The internet as we know it can be divided into 3 periods…
Web1 in the ’90s was the AOLs and Netscapes. Files and programs lived on floppy disks because data was only in one place at one time. Remember the band The Postal Service? They mailed music files back and forth to produce an album because DropBox didn’t exist… yet.
Web2 began in the mid-2000s and included social media, apps, Big Tech, and “the cloud.” Data lives on large servers owned by corporations and can be hacked in large pools simultaneously.
Web3 is a world where data, photos, and files are ownable and stored in a decentralized way rather than by one corporation in a data center. Web3 is changing the way we think about digital communities, digital banking, and how our personal data is owned and stored. (This is a gross simplification but gives you a basic idea of the core concepts.)
As I lead the team at OX Creative, my mandate as CEO is to ensure our agency is cutting-edge. This requires discerning which trends and innovations we should develop expertise in and which we should not, as we support organizations doing GOOD in the world. This becomes complex when my experience is that trends typically do more harm than good.
The thing is, many innovations begin with self-serving intent rather than “good” in mind.
Take the California Gold Rush, for example. In the late 1840s, gold was struck in the American West at Sutters Mill. This attracted thousands of young, single, adventurous men seeking their fortune in a lawless, dangerous environment with the promise of fabulous riches. The upside was wealth. But the potential for wealth came at a staggering cost.
The American West of the 1840s was a place of promise but also deeply problematic. Winners won big; losers lost it all — and fairness and justice had little to do with the outcome. The same spirit still exists in the West. Even today, it remains the frontier for those seeking their fortunes in the cut-throat technology and entertainment industries. It’s no accident that Web3 is described as a new “Gold Rush.”
For me, though Web3 has seemed creatively exciting, it wasn’t necessarily something I felt good about joining. Chiefly, when Facebook changed its name to Meta, I felt this rebrand wasn’t fully merited and distracted from some deeper ethical issues that remained unrepaired. Secondly, crypto-culture appears to be motivated by greed rather than altruism. To me, crypto-bros spending millions on NFT cartoons celebrating party culture is something our world needs less of, not more. Despite the blockchain’s claim to distribute power, we have seen the consolidation of control and resources into the hands of fiscally suspect leaders. The failure of FTX. The decision of some NFT marketplaces to stop paying artist royalties. These are just two case points for how society placed too much trust in the hands of too few. This is what drove people to leave Web2 and embrace Web3 in the first place.
In the last decade, beginning with the housing market collapse in 2008, we have witnessed a series of events where consolidated power led to collapse: the banking industry, Big Tech, Twitter, and Facebook, each showing us how dangerous the consolidated power of Web2 is. Watching this occur in Web3 has reminded us afresh that technology itself is neither the problem nor the solution. But instead, how we choose to use it will make the difference.
How can Web3 make a difference for GOOD in the real world? These are a few important opportunities I see.
Web3 can transform the refugee crisis, human trafficking, and the healthcare industry by eliminating the issues caused by loss of passports and identity. The future is soul-bound digital “paperwork” held in the blockchain that cannot be lost, destroyed, stolen, or ransomed. If it were built on Web3, a trafficker could not confiscate an enslaved person’s identification in a foreign country, leaving them powerless to escape for fear of imprisonment. If records were built on Web3, a hospital could not lose your medical history because the patient will own them and take to and from every appointment.
I see the potential for Web3 to transform the way event ticketing works. If Taylor Swift had sold tickets to her Era tour using NFTs-as-tickets instead of Ticketmaster, she would have controlled the ticketing process and protected her audience from price hikes on the secondary market.
NFTs will transform the way philanthropy works. When generous individuals donate at a charitable auction, they receive a digital collectible artwork that will appreciate and can be resold. And when it does, the charity will continue to receive a percentage of every re-sale. In this scenario, one gala/auction/gift could fund an organization in perpetuity.
The metaverse will transform the way events work. It will eliminate the barrier of the location to collaboration. Political boundaries. Quarantines. They will no longer separate people from forming communities and ideas from being shared.
Web3 can allow undiscovered and marginalized artists to get their work not only seen but protect their ability to retain the profits from their work. It creates a new decentralized marketplace for creators who would not have gotten past the “gatekeepers” of the current media and entertainment structures. Talent will retain ownership of their work and not have to sign away rights in exchange for distribution in exploitative agreements.
It has been said, “We know that an innovation has become mainstream when the technology disappears.” When we stop saying metaverse, when we stop saying NFTs, when we stop saying Web3, we will know it has become mainstream, and the future is “here.” Because it has become invisible to us.
OX believes that it is possible to change the culture of Web3 by joining it rather than observing it and hoping for the best. We have a role in shaping a better future and ensuring this space becomes what it should be: a FORCE for GOOD!
Together, we can navigate this unique moment in history when things rapidly change to be a positive force for good in this new space. To transform how causes build community. To influence how charitable funds are raised and distributed. To push the boundaries of what experiences are like. To make art that is truly amazing and inspiring.
Let’s rise above toxic culture and create a blue sky of creative possibilities focused on GOOD.
Follow OX’s foray into creating good in the Web3 space as we partner in launching @LARKHAUS. LARKHAUS is an art innovation company of leading world-class artists to bridge their work and audience from traditional mediums into Web3.
OX x LARKHAUS. Let’s build the future.
