How Photochain is using blockchain to build a community
As with any personal interest, photographers love being part of the photography community. Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned pro, it is always beneficial to share ideas, works and inspirations. But for the photography community to come together in one digital space is not so easy with current centralised systems.
Photostocks, for example, are not built around community, but rather around a business. This leads to a fragmentation between photography conversation and photography markets. However, blockchain technology, as is being developed by Photochain.io, allows a community to form where there is also a market place, so that everything is all in one place.
Blockchains essentially are a set of rules that people choose to follow, and knowing that everyone else is following the same rules is what creates the trust. It helps users to act together on an equal footing and knowing no one is above the others is what helps to build a fair community.
Photochain, however, is to be much more than just an innovative, direct way for buyers and sellers to interact. It will also be an online cooperative — users helps each other, for example with moderation of potential copyright claims.
Users are also incentivised through the reward of tokens to act in the best interest of the community. The more claims cases you settle, the more tokens you receive as a reward. In the long term, a fair a successfully functioning Dapp should see its token increase in value, so it is the best interest of all users to act fairly with each other.
The long plan of the Photochain Dapp is to become its own DAO. A Decentralised Autonomous Organisation is an organisation that is based entirely on the blockchain. The DAO is entirely democratic, in that all members must hold a token that belongs to that DAO and this token gives them the right to vote in decisions that need to be taken by the DAO. A successful DAO would take on a community like form as everyone would act in a way that they see is in the best interest of the DAO.
For Photochain, one would say that the common goal here is for all users coming together for the promotion of fair photography. DAO’s require constant communication and interaction about the condition of the organisation — whats good, whats bad and what needs to change — so this DAO structure will only promote community even further.
Photochain is a perfect example of what blockchains can really do. Not only are they a tool for making transactions cheaper and faster, they also help to bring together like minded people to form self-serving communities. In an ideal future, a world full of such blockchain communities could only be a good thing right?
