NFTs and the idea maze

The future of media is still here, it’s just not evenly distribute

NFTs dramatically accelerate our navigation through the startup idea maze.

This is my main takeaway from reading Chris Dixon’s 2015 blog post “Lessons from the PC video game industry”.

Testing new business models in media has always been costly: IP and distribution being the major factors for cost of experimentation.

What we have seen over the last year: multiple experiments on fundraising, IP models, monetization, user-created remixes and mods, was entirely enabled by the use of non-fungible tokens to represent property rights for media assets: collectibles, game items, music, art.

Pairing that with the ability to access a global pool of liquidity provided by crypto infrastructure that has been built over the last decade matches the tools (the NFTs) with the incentives (the money).

Companies were able to raise millions of dollars from their own users to build products, using NFTs both as end product and claims on future products. While the products can fail, the iteration of business models will be learned, and the Darwinian process of the market will result in more robust business models for media.

NFTs are also pushing the boundaries of user ownership and responsibility. DAOs like Nouns DAO basically flip the idea of building a media business by turning the decision of building a brand to its own community.

From a societal point of view, any meta-innovation — innovation that accelerate the pace of innovation itself — tends to have positive impacts.

See you tomorrow.