COMMUNITIES 3.0
Web3 and its facets are quite fascinating to me and I really wanted to explore one of the biggest use cases of WEB3 in some of my writing after procrastinating for some time, I just finally decided to explore COMMUNITIES FORMED IN WEB3.
I feel as long as there have been human beings, we have always been urged to bring ways of connecting with other human beings and form human networks. As Yuval puts it in ‘Sapien’ The most unique thing about homo-sapiens that gave us the evolutionary edge has been the ability to work in groups with shared goals. We found ways of communicating with each other through the birth of language and believed in mythical concepts that formed the backbone for our strong functionality as a group. Other human species couldn’t do that as efficiently as we. Well, this edge in group functionality allowed us to slaughter other species of human beings giving homo sapiens the evolutionary edge ( Ya, we are born in the family of murderers)
As we have evolved, we found more efficient ways of sending data and maintaining human networks and found systems to maintain and share common goals and interests. The first system that we figured could be religion or the concept of a shared belief in a God that laid a common ground for our great great x 10 grandpa and his buddies to behead their enemies. The birth of mass media in some sense has to do with this growing need for maintaining human networks through common data points in human culture, be it the spreading of human events as news or fictional stories that depict human life from different perspectives in the form of movies and novels. Mass media proved to be a system of spreading cultural information(books, movies, news, art) across the masses, creating some sense of commonality among people, and helping the formation and maintenance of nation-states.
But many problems still existed ineffective group formation and functionality. People still had to rely on immediate physical social circles around them for groups and mould themselves to fit the group or the collective, mass media wasn’t for the niche but the masses and was heavily gate kept, geographical separation was just a problem by the reality that couldn’t be solved. You just had to live life and be part of groups that you have been presented with…till the internet came along.
COMPUTER-MEDIATED HUMAN NETWORKS
What started as a network for data transmission for the military, is used for ordering food at 2 am while watching strangers dance on reels.
We started solving human network issues that arose from geographical distance and place by creating a system of tightly nit computer networks that can be accessed from anywhere.
The internet proved to be the perfect successor for culture spread, a network of computers that is accessible to any human with a computer across the globe meant that physical boundaries were no longer a problem, you could be part of any community or group of your choice because the internet meant that anyone could start a group online on anything through tools like forums and websites. Cultural data points like content, and knowledge could be spread at light speed compared to the past and that too across the globe. As more people started to opt for the internet, the network became more tightly nit, and more niches and ideas could be spread and adopted leading to the development of apps and companies that help facilitate human networks and the spread of culture across the globe through like your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc
The advent of social media is a result of this process, we reached a point in human-tech evolution that computer networks became a medium for culture spread.
Social media platforms in the end have just provided the tools to quantify the life of a human and his behaviour by providing tools for a user to show themselves and their personality in the form of videos or text. For the first time in human history, humans were not bound through just physical boundaries but virtual boundaries. That meant that for the first time a human could be part of a collective that has nothing to do with his or her physical vicinity. You could get to know about people and groups along with function as a group without ever being present in real. The internet became a hub for human networks, creating a space for human life to exist that is not rooted in reality.
I have heard so many arguments on web2 and web3 that human life cant be virtual and being physically present cannot be replaced. Of course, it can’t be completely replaced nor is there a need to do so, what the internet and its future promises are not people living in their couches doing nothing other than having VR glasses but rather systems and tools that could enhance the human life experience. Better ways to communicate with each other, better ways of forming collectives and gaining from them as users, and better ways of spreading culture and data.
I mean when the internet was made nobody in their wildest imagination thought that it would be used to order food, but you might be eating something that you just ordered from swiggy as you read this. Internet and computer-mediated human networks have allowed us to live as humans in a new way. And as for the “virtual life is going to kill humanity” argument… Don’t we already live most of our life online, from how I see I could never see stats like these in medieval times?
I am not saying everything is all merry good and omg there are no problems, there are a million of them but I just feel that it has definitely pushed in a net positive direction.
Virtual Communities:
The internet fundamentally changed how we exist virtually and how we maintain human relations. We no longer maintain human relationships in person but through texts or sharing of cultural material…virtually through your phone. Your Instagram is just a virtual form of showing your existence through pictures or texts that you chose to put out, at this point you can know about someone virtual before knowing in real.
You have tools to maintain and form groups online. Think about all the WhatsApp groups you are part of where you might not even have met the others before. Virtual living has already started, the internet was the first step but even the internet lacks certain things like; because it’s virtual, you can’t really verify people hence at a base level there is uncertainty to groups that form virtually, the tools for these human networks to exist are again run by a select group of companies and people that dictate the use and spread of these tools, even though the internet means you can be part of any collective, the ways of governing and reward distribution of any collective still remained in traditional forms which kinda limited any groups utility.
The internet changed the way we live, we have already started virtual lives, it’s just where this might go that could structurally change how we live forever. Bringing us to web3 and communities formed through it.
Web 3 communities
Web3 and blockchain could be key to unlocking more potential of the internet. It’s like an update to the network.
One of blockchain’s many use cases is the fact that now there is a system to authenticate things virtually. With a public ledger that is run on millions of computers all verifying it at the same time, you can authenticate things that are virtual by adding them to the chain(now of course it’s not so ideal, its a complicated tech and explaining its intricacies would make me look more of a nerd than using the word intricacies) meaning you can attach value to virtually existing things.
That upgrades the internet to having its currency, new ways of ownership, and changing how we exist on the virtual space called the internet.
This means that fictional things can have value, groups are based on shared interest that a collective feels has value. Self-sustaining virtual communities can be created because a group could have belief in fictional things and create value out of them. Meaning new possible structural ways of running groups and collectives on the internet, a decentralised way.
Like, let’s look at web3 communities, this way.
(WEB3 poet’s Ipad has too many gold insights to steal from)
Let’s think about the most complex human network, a society. Most organisations in society use this model for decision making and reward distribution.
(Benefit A will have higher priority for politicians to exercise)
This also arises because there always has been a body to determine how decision making and reward distribution would happen for the users of the collective.
There is a Top-down model, meaning society needs to be governed and grown but the individual could only contribute through set ways that the individual doesn't even decide, and the middlemen also determine the rewards it gets.
WEB2 did increase the contribution a single human being could have to society by directly contributing to more commerce and the spread of culture and ideas. Because of the internet eCommerce was possible, people could have businesses run through computers. Through virtual entities like apps and websites, a collective could provide value by solving problems that exist in humans and gain rewards. But again, this became centralised just like how traditional societies work.
Blockchain makes the network of the internet more versatile, because you could now have tools to create even more value through a collective and have the users dictate where and have to utilise the value themselves.
With blockchain, you can have DAOs( Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) in the most simplest sense a whatsapp group with a bank account.
( I mean youtube exists, the video would explain this better)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHm0uUPqmVE&ab_channel=WhiteboardCrypto
Users can make a DAO or participate in DAOs by contributing to the community and deciding where value created by the DAO should be distributed and directly participating in decision making through smart contracts.
A group of people can create value virtually ( this could be through NFTs and web3 projects ) and decide how that value should be used themselves. A normal user can support or create DAOs.
I mean there now exists a pizza DAO, A nft collection made by a few individuals where the money that is generated through NFT sales would be used to make a pizzeria and the decisions relating to the pizzeria would be taken by the NFT holders themselves and the value generated would be shared.
Well, this opens up more ways for an individual to contribute to the human collective. Web3 drastically changes how users can be rewarded for their participation. You can buy crypto coins to help fund projects that you think could make a difference, you as a creator can use the same tech to crowdfund your projects and native token holders can even decide how the project should be run. Well, blockchain also solves the problem of trusting in anonymity, well because you can verify identities on the chain, which helps a collectives functionality towards their goals.
Hivemapper(https://hivemapper.com) is a great example of web3 and community-run projects that can create a deep impact on the world. Hivemapper is a web3 project that is trying to create an efficient mapping system that rivals google maps through user-uploaded data. These users(Hivemapper’s community) hets rewarded through their tokens and other crypto-incentives.
If you are into crypto, you would know about MANA or SAND, these are the crypto tokens of Decentraland and Sandbox. Well, these multi-million dollar companies allow users to be part of their DAO and decide what should happen on these platforms. I mean, some people currently have their jobs as bartenders on Decentraland.
( https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/casino-decentraland-hiring-real-205014804.html )
This could create a bottom-up model, meaning the individual contributes to the governance and growth of the collective or society through virtual communities without set ways.
Communities and Identity:
I just feel, that there has never been a time for communities to exist and contribute like this before.
Communities would slowly become a social identity indicator, Bored apes are just an indication that you are part of an elite club.
I feel this is what a lot of people don’t get about NFTs, they are just codes on the blockchain that can be attached to anything and create value. They are a great tool to create and sustain communities. NFTs are not limited to Jpeg, music or art projects but rather a tool to help create and sustain communities by acting as vessels to carry data, knowledge or concepts that can value.
This could be art, music, land, assets or even decision-making tokens.
NFTs could act as entry passes to virtual clubs, virtual land or support tokens of projects. Artists don’t have to get big labels or corporates they could create thriving communities that buy his/her/their art as NFTs and sustain them and the community. NFTs have a huge community/collective building utility to them. You could almost predict NFTs success on their utility and what they offer to the community.
Broadly, WEB3 communities could be categorised into:
Clubs: Social identity marks, your Bored ape, cryptopunks or cryptostones, RTFKT is basically a way of virtue signalling your class, identity, and opinions.
Support groups: Communities that support a cause, an interest or a vision. These are individuals that believe in an artist or a particular artistic vision that they support and grow while reaping benefits for contributing.
Project Incubators: These would be collectives or individuals that contribute to the growth and vision of projects. These could be of any form but the community is very active in the decision making of the project as a good per cent of them act as initial investors.
(DAOs are also a class of web3 communities but they could also be classified as a tool for any web3 community functionality)
The future of virtual communities:
While trying to develop a metaverse, I come to realise that virtual communities possibly would become the next big form of existing on the internet and possibly change individual contribution towards art, artists, platforms, products, brands etc.
The boom of the creator-driven economy could now evolve into a community-driven economy. Dapps and platforms are developing that facilitate individual rewards through community growth.
Using tokens, NFT or any form of virtual value, an organisation could run through communities. Some of these communities themselves would be brands. A Bored Ape is a brand, it’s a community brand. People know the community and its values without any product or tangible product or anything, the community itself is the product. I just have a hunch that maybe the next of form brands to exist or form distribution of brands could be these virtually run communities. As a brand, communities could stand out by creating value around them. As a distributary system, other brands could now get a new way of forming their community groups, have more ways of incentivising their users to use their products or contribute to the growth of brands. User run brands could be achieved.
Maybe in the future just like you have your social identification through social media profiles, you could have your social identification depending on what communities you are part of and contribute towards.
Crypto-tokens, NFTs, and Token are the first use cases of blockchain and so much is possible right now, Imagine the possibilities of the internet that can be unlocked.
Of course, whatever I have written are ideal hopes based on whatever data I have read and processed on web3 and communities, the reality may be harsher but looking at history, tech that provides use cases for the spread and efficiency of human networks would be adopted by the masses and create real changes to the fabric of how we live. Like the internet.
Well, if you are interested check these DAOs and communities out:
