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ESSAY | The dawn of the Transformation Economy: web3's new era (part 3)

Episode · The Comma Project · The Transformation Economy: how web3 is re-shaping our world On Hypersub, the tools of the Transformation Economy, taste as an asset, and world-building ----------- Read or watch part 1: ⁠Essay⁠ ⁠Spotify⁠ ----------- Read or watch part 2: Essay Spotify ----------- Web3 is revolutionizing how we create, share, and value culture.

Hey you, welcome back to the final part of my series on how web3 is bringing us into a new era of culture and commerce (what I’m calling the Transformation Economy), and how it will facilitate more meaningful human connections and catalyze the transformations we seek.

In part one, we covered the evolution of today and tomorrow’s media landscape, the shift of value from content to culture, and why I believe we’re entering a new era: the Transformation Economy.

In part two, we delved into how web3 fuels the Transformation Economy by aligning incentives between users and owners, creating human-centric systems that better catalyze personal and societal transformations.

In part three, we’ll explore specific web3 technology ushering in this new era. We’ll look at how it works in practice and use examples of how these innovations enable us to coordinate people, missions, and value in new ways.

Give parts one and two another read (or watch) ⬇ before we move into part three.

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The dawn of the Transformation Economy: web3's new era (part 1)

On the evolution from content to culture, and information to transformation

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The dawn of the Transformation Economy: web3's new era (part 2)

On overcoming the limitations of yesterday's tools, transforming users into owners, and uniting culture and capital with web3

Hypersub: transforming the creator economy

Let’s make web3 more concrete. Let’s look at a tangible example.

Hypersub.

I found Hypersub while reading Ted’s essay on the web3 version of Substack ⬇

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hypersub as the crypto substack

i recently asserted that substack is the modern social network platform: creators have a direct relationships, both economic and social, with their f...

How does it work?

You find a project (like a creator or a company) that you like.

You pay a subscription for it.

In addition to getting whatever the project promises (like content, products, experiences, community membership), you also get a stake in the project, in the form of a digital asset (e.g., an NFT), only possible using web3 technology.

As the project earns money (through Hypersub subscription revenue or other income streams), a portion is shared with you. The earlier and longer you subscribe, the more you get. The orchestration and distribution of money is automatic and programmatic as per the design of the creator’s rules. No action needed. Smooth, efficient, and accurate.

If you refer others who subscribe, you earn more.

The possibilities are endless. It’s fully customizable by the creator. If you want to learn more, read this and this.

It does everything I talked about in part two.

It’s fully incentive-aligned.

When the project wins, you win.

When you win, the project wins.

It’s a skin-in-the-game version of today’s memberships.

It’s a hybrid of patronage and investment.

It’s where users become owners.

Why is this interesting?

More aligned and positive-sum

Hypersub enables a new system with better alignment between participants (users, creators, and collaborators), creating better outcomes for all.

As I wrote in part two:

Web3 pools independent action, energy, and resources for shared ownership and upside.
Web3 technology better aligns incentives to coordinate shared action of individuals towards a mission. This results in more efficient use of resources (human and financial) with less waste and negative externalities.

It’s better for members, since they share in the value that they help create.

It’s better for creators, because they have members with real skin in the game instead of passive ones. Members are truly motivated to help the project succeed beyond mere fandom - there’s a financial incentive for them.

As a creator, you have a built-in marketing machine. Instead of paying for access to eyeballs, members are incentivized to promote your project.

More aligned and positive-sum.

Win/win models win in the long term.

Permissionless and independent

In web2, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X/Twitter own the relationship between projects and their members.

These web2 platforms hold the power by coordinating attention and recording the social graph of followership. Projects become dependent on them and can’t switch platforms and transport their content and followers away seamlessly.

In web3, projects are permissionless and platform-independent.

Creators are no longer dependent on any one platform holding their follower list. They can bring the project - content and followers included - anywhere. This enables creators to choose tools that best serve their mission and members, even as they change - benefiting all.

Web3 gives creators agency, not the platforms.

More dynamic, less specific = more human

This new paradigm better aligns with the way the world is moving.

As I mentioned in part one, the world is changing. Value is shifting from content to culture and transformation. There’s less value in any one source of information, more in the community, and even more in the transformation they facilitate.

People are increasingly following people, and seeking connection and affiliation over consumption.

The world is becoming more dynamic and less specific.

Hypersub brings us into that more dynamic world.

Hypersub allows us to be dynamic world-builders, instead of specific job titles (like writer, podcaster, artist, or coach).

What does this remind you of?

It reminds me of the experience of being human. We are dynamic beings with varied interests and professions. We contain multitudes, as they say.

Hypersub helps us align our external lives and work with our internal ones.

Hypersub is technology for culture, not content. Tools for depth and connection, not follower counts. For humans, not computers.

Taste is an asset

Hypersub enables a new kind of value exchange - both cultural and financial.

Cultural taste is an asset that we’ve never been able to assign value to, beyond some ethereal sense of clout and status, or the ability to say “I was there first.”

But what if we could make cultural taste a tangible asset?

Now we can.

Remember - when you join a project on Hypersub, you get a stake in the project in the form of a digital asset, like an NFT. This concretizes your membership, and reflects its value in real time.

Membership and taste become a tangible asset, with financial value. Affiliation and membership can now be valued, bought, or sold.

We can now reflect and capture what has been, until now, the ethereal value of taste.

Taste is now an asset.

The implications are massive.

We have a direct, efficient, objective way to value culture.

“Tastemaker” is now a true profession, like “investor” - but instead of picking stocks, you affiliate with early cultural figures, communities, and movements.

Imagine discovering the next star artist or creator before they were popular, and owning an NFT signifying your belief and affiliation from their early days. You could profit not only financially from the increasing value of that single NFT, but also from people who may start following you for your perspective on who and what is to come in the zeitgeist.

In a chaotic world with endless free information, taste and curation matter more than ever. Now we can assign financial value where it matters.

The lines between culture and capital are blurring.

This makes for a more human world.

Let’s talk about world-building

World-building matters, and it’s only becoming more important.

As the number of brands, their products and services, and our access to them approaches infinity, the emotional, human connection behind a project becomes increasingly important.

The value of a project increasingly lies in the world it’s building - its brand, mission, values, vibe - rather than just the quality of its product or service.

By turning users into owners, the people who care about the whole world around a brand and its product (its users) are also the ones that benefit from its growth (its owners).

This is a good thing.

We’ve always had relationships with projects and brands. Now, those relationships can be deeper and more authentic. Our projects and brands, and our relationships with them, can be more holistic and connected.

It’s about the why, not the what. Planting a flag for a why brings the who, how, and what into existence.

It’s not for everyone. Those who don’t share the same beliefs may never get our project.

And that’s okay.

Because in a world of infinity and abundance, what matters isn’t just something for anyone and everyone - but something deeper and more meaningful for those who seek it.

We can now build truer expressions of our lives and work.

They can be more human.

In web2, we had users, and we had owners.
In web3, we have users who own.

In web2, brands were the extension of a project’s products and services.
In web3, products and services are the extension of a project’s brand and world.

In web2, we valued relationships with brands - their mission, their values, their vibe - but could only transact with their products and services.
In web3, we transact with products and services to express our connection with a project’s brand and world.

In web2, the value of a project’s brand and world accrued to its owners, at the expense of its users.
In web3, the value of a project’s brand and world accrues to its users, who are also its owners.

In web2, a project is fractured and siloed: its product or service, users, owners, employees, brand.
In web3, a project is a cohesive world, with all parts and people connected: its product or service, users, owners, builders, brand.

In web2, cultural and financial value were only loosely tied, and ephemeral.
In web3, cultural and financial value are deeply intertwined, and concrete.

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