How do we land the early adopter mass into the blockchain?
At the Berlin Web3 Summit I’ve had the chance to meet wonderful people from very different projects.
The most concerning topic I’ve discussed with everyone I’ve met is: “How do we get the early mass to join the decentralized dapp space, not just deverlopers and idealists”?
Well, as of today, anyone approaching a dapp needs to
- Register with an exchange service
- Get the ID card, passport and residence details accepted
- Deposit some funds
- Wait until the bank transfer arrives
- Place an order to buy some Ether
- Install Metamask
- Transfer Ether from the exchange to MetaMask
- Now that you can finally for gas, submit a transaction
In his last article on blockchain’s UX research, Beltran Berrocal says it clear:
By this point a Dapp has probably lost 99.99% of users.
The UX Friction of using the Blockchain today sublimates instantly the user base.
In addition to this, there are two more barriers preventing casual users to get into using decentralized applications:
- Understanding decentralization, wallets, miners, custody, MetaMask, transactions, data finality, etc. Do they really need to?
- “What’s my advantage of paying in crypto instead of cash?”
There is work in progress in order to allow zero cost transactions for newbies,, but alone that doesn’t solve the initial friction problem.
So we know that distributed applications have the potential to change everything around us. But how do we get them to land on the critical mass of users?
We’ve all seen the ICO boom, but let’s face it: It was about the 2.5% innovators and maybe some get-rich-quick early adopters.
Now what?
Recent history
Let’s look at the recent cases of disruption and success. Can we think of revolutionary recent projects that got it right and grew exponentially?
- Snapchat
What’s their key ingredient at their point of initial effervescence? Teenagers.
- She, teenager, goes through the never-ending register process of Snapchat, just because her friend is on it and does cool crazy stuff with friends that she can’t do
- He, teenager, uploads nice stories on Instagram because it’s his way to differentiate from his parents and do newer things than they don’t understand
- Because only “they” understand how cool it will be, they do whatever it takes to join the “club” and be part of the next wave
Remember the old days before WhatsApp?
Squashing cryptical words into 160 characters, so you could tell a lot of things while paying for just one message? Or even developing a binary code with a friend to communicate for free over a sequence of lost calls?
Re-read the previous paragraph. It’s the exact same history.
Still, earlier in time:
Remember the epic days of Napster, Emule, Kazaa?
What happened when they arose?
- Getting unlimited access to world-wide content
- “Free” music, movies, TV shows, …
- Slow speed, average design and experience, but… who cared? Free!
- Bypassing stores, resellers and record companies
- It looked “incorrect”, dishonest and possibly illegal to your parents
Remember all of this? Well, who cares now?
The cinema and music industries reinvented themselves and accomodated to a new world where content is now abundant. Not to mention the rise of new business models with the popularization of Youtube.
Are crypto currencies any different to what P2P meant back at the time?
- Getting direct access to world-wide wealth
- Almost-free world-wide transactions
- Slow mining speeds, average design and user experience
- Bypassing banks, fees and payment platforms
- For adults, it is “used for dishonest things” and it may be illegal
Well, exactly the same story, 17 years later. Same ingredients, same feedback.
But the question still stands
What does it take to engage the Early Adopter mass of users into the decentralized land?
At this point, I think that many of us need to squeeze our brains and find the sweet crypto toy that can become the next “Instagram”. Let teenagers play a completely different thing that their parents can’t understand, and they are likely to do so.
Then what?
This “thing” doesn’t probably need to be useful, maybe just playful.
- Maybe it needs to be a crypto GameBoy storing high scores on the blockchain.
- Maybe it needs to be a Crypto Tamagochi using tokens to feed the creature.
- Or a Rubik’s cube with IoT support.
- Maybe it looks like a collectible cards dapp running on Status.
Who knows?
But whatever it is, it should probably target the 15–20 age segment, because their mind is open to experimentation, early adoption and disruption.
But on the other side, if we expect senior economists and philosophists to engage society into embracing the goodneess of a fully decentralized world, then I bet our grandchildren would never see it happen.
The future is in front of us, we just need to make it happen. It has a young face and he/she needs a new cool toy to do something new with friends.
If you find this article interesting, please don’t be shy and clap out loud 👏. If you clap loud enough and share it elsewhere, other people may come up to much better conclusions than mine and eventually make the world a better place with them. Thanks you!
