Cameron Builds

Content Experiment #4: Live casting my reactions to @cdixon.eth’s “Read Write Own”

It might take 3 hours or all week, but I’ll cast all my thoughts as I have em. 

1st impression: Wonderful cover art and an NFT mint I couldn’t get to work on mobile

(I guess it’s delivering the real crypto experience 🙃)

Crypto/web3. Author of Read Write Own

readwriteown.com

Also what an incredibly stacked book jacket. 

These are some heavy hitters fr 

Which makes me wonder…

weird internet kid. helping Creators with /seemore. yapping on /okbanger. curating in /creators and /cameron. dev + veteran + HBS. 
seemore.tv/cameron 🫡

Combine this w the veritable art piece of a cover illustration (beach sunrise digitalized painting?? - what a specific vibe)

My guess rn is RWO is written for non-independently wealthy, but still-relatively-self-actualized Silicon Valley operators AND anyone that used to tweet a lot from Brooklyn

Let’s begin 🫡

god I’m such a sucker for Dyson adjacent content - gg on quote selection 

this is gonna get some CS undergrads absolutely ripping on random ass MVPs for new social networks

Table of Contents is MUCH denser than expected. 

Not revising my intended audience yet, but i am curious how this ends up playing out. 

Some corpo-tech books and up just repeating the same thing in a bunch of different ways bc people are just skimming anyways but fingers crossed here it’s not!

TOC pt 2 - it’s interesting to note how much actual crypto native vernacular is used. 

(Not much but he did say NFT which is bold and I appreciate that a lot)

Imo this is the right decision for the audience I THINK it’s for

Farcasters might be less impressed by this bc it might make everything feel dumbed down

Introduction - Mostly a specific version of history where Big Tech is obviously the bad guy in this narrative. 

I think it plays into public perception (and tbh reality) of modern tech well

Software as creative expression isn’t as effective imo but blockchains as steel vs wood is a GREAT device

1. Why Networks Matter

Nice little ode to the power of interconnections + math

Neat riposte to the reflexive “REGULATE MORE” that democratic aides who have to read this to brief their lawmaker on RWO will def think while reading this

Also I’m such a sucker for well-curated quotes to complement ideas

2. Protocol Networks is nerd bait tech history porn done v well

It’s a great journey linking Greek linguistics to techno-hippie developers to centralized name spaces to decentralized take rates to RSS and more. 

It omits some important specifics but it’s ch 2 w a full exploration later!

(also omfg THE QUOTES)

It’s also important to point out that  @cdixon.eth isn’t just talking about why protocols make sense for fundamental infra or why they haven’t worked since email/web

He’s pointing out specifically the ideas that devs like as solutions but have never worked irl. 

He’s logicking HackerNews into a corner.

3. Corporate Networks - another history lesson except this time on how corporations corrupted the internet’s permissionless garden of Eden 

Here’s where I’m getting nervous. 

I am immediately suspect of anything VC-fund adjacent bc the incentives are what they are. 

Chris notably founded @a16zcrypto so…

I figured this chapter would either be:

1. A softball retelling hard enough to piss off normal people but not enough to alienate the Zuck’s of the world Chris inhabits

Or

2. A jugular shot at everything old so a16z can rebuild the internet in their own image w their portfolio co’s

It’s sorta in the middle?

Facebook is an example villain, but Chris is working really hard to make the company the villain NOT the entrepreneur 

And not really the co, but the co’s DESIGN is his villain

It’s a really neat device that abstracts away the perceived “evilness” of capitalism and diverts the ire to the corp network design

Anyway on to crypto bits 🫡

(fun fact I’m ALSO a sucker for negative space)

4. Blockchains

It’s interesting to me to choose this quote when we can clearly see many examples where platform intermediation is a feature (don’t have to deal w customer support is common boon of platforms) not a bug

It fits with the sell of “corporations bad” but might be a little too easy to beat up online

I’ll never get tired of saying this tho

I think RWO’s Blockchain chapter is the best, no bullshit, here’s what a blockchain REALLY is explainer for anyone who is unfamiliar w crypto but seeks to understand 

Hits environment, validators, fraud, etc all v well

gg @cdixon.eth if this bit is released as a standalone post I will share the link forever 🫡

Although I feel this “of course” in my SOUL lolol

My only v minor nitpick is I’d love gratuitous footnotes for this section to preempt  the “um actually” prone folks out there  but I can see how they might worsen the experience for the intended audience

5. Tokens is an interesting chapter. 

It grabbed me (first extremely sober wtf is a token take that I’ve read in a minute - tbf it’s basically how I already explain tokens which is why I like it)

It lost me w stablecoins (I care a LOT about this it just didn’t feel the right spot imo but fair)

But!!

The end of Chapter 5 reeled me back in with a Grade A, American-made, often-imitated-but-rarely-replicated Chris Dixon classic banger

I suspect I’ll see a lot more of these Chris Dixon “hey that’s an essay already” earned secrets throughout the rest of the book

Chapter 6 - Blockchain Networks

Blockchains as cities with public and private goods is probably the metaphor that saves the industry (with the democrats anyway)

Really enjoyed this chapter even if I personally think most of the conversation about blockchains and company take rates are too idealistic 😵‍💫

7. Community Created Software

I’m a sucker for any writing about modding games/remixing media.

This is a good (and succinct) exploration of Composability that non-crypto people (esp devs) will probably appreciate.

I do wish he named @packy in the “Software as Lego Bricks” section bc that’s great more reading

8. Take Rates 

This is the chapter I wanted to read the most. 

It’s brutal towards Big Tech (nice), neatly addresses a lot of increasingly outdated blockchain concerns, and I think squeezing the balloon is a crucial rhetorical device in the narrative war. 

Lots more to say, but excellent job on a v hard topic imo

9. Token Incentives 

Most of this chapter won’t be new to Farcasters. 

Some not quite cherry picked highlights, not much discussion of the ruthlessness of the rank n file airdrop hunter, but it explicitly addresses memecoins well which is a big win

“Dogecoin is a silly network, but it’s THEIR silly network”

This one’s a banger and is going in the rotation of my “Bowling Alone” talk track 😮‍💨

10. Tokenomics

This is required reading for anyone degening into shitcoins. 

It’s frames tokens in videogame language immediately (big narrative win) and gives skeptics a mental model for “kinda sorta fundamental valuation” + crypto cycles. 

My only gripe is not addressing misleading “staking” mechanisms

11. Network Gov

This chapter is the one the non-crypto-pilled needs will get upset about (besides all the other ones ofc)

Chris points out the glaringly underwhelming success of both non-profit and federated networks thus far and treats it fairly imo

Plus he namedrops “Tyranny of Structureless-ness” which I love

Also there is ZERO doubt in my mind that this chart is gonna make its way to Harvard Business School cases

12. The Computer vs the Casino

or

“Degens hate this one simple narrative device”

This ch. feels designed to catch a congressperson up to on crypto regulation in 12 pages

And I think it succeeds!

“There are no known ways to design permissionless blockchains w/o tokens + token trading” is def a banger

Other bangers in this chapter include:

“Friction is a death knell”

“If you can’t buy or sell something, you remove ownership”

“The casino should not hold the computer down”

13. The iPhone moment

A little bit of tech platform history, a little bit of “what tech changes matter”, a little bit of trying to associate “blockchain networks” with “the bottom of their S curve”

This short chapter is probably for people who won’t read the much longer next chapter 👀😵‍💫

14. Some promising apps

I won’t list them here (buy the book lol)

But I will say that this chapter does a LOT

Some highlights:
- redistributing big tech take rates to creators would directly fund about 2M jobs
- dunks on the music industry bc they keep fighting the future
- paints crypto as a restraint on AI

Also, as a Napster/The Pirate Bay kid, this chart is so fucking funny to me

Conclusion:

“In one version of the future, networks are owned by a handful of companies that stifle innovation while users, developers, creators, and entrepreneurs compete for leftovers.

The internet becomes another mass medium, favoring content and experiences that are broad and shallow.”

It’s the right takeaway for who I think the audience is. 

The book is varying parts collectivist, libertarian, democratic, republican, technologist, and poetic. 

If I’m a regulator I’ll understand:
-blockchains are like iPhones 
-big tech might be disrupted by them
-regulation is broken for this space rn

If I’m a non-crypto developer that makes it to the end I’ll prob comb through the notes for further reading + check out some repo’s

If I’m an MBA, I might salivate at the idea of a platform shift

If I’m a tech “thinker”, I’ll probably go hmm and revert my opinion back to status quo after the next scam

Overall, I’m going to buy this book for everyone in my life in tech but isn’t reflexively anti-crypto

And while I’m generally skeptical of the a16z media juggernaut’s motives here bc they will not help create a new internet without a substantial profit interest baked in for them…

I don’t WANT to be 👀

I’ve read @cdixon.eth’s thinking for years. 

His body of work is on the Mount Rushmore of startup/crypto thinking for me along w PG, @pmarca, and @fredwilson.eth, and @packy 

I want this book to be a clear-eyed telling of how the future could be if we just got the fuck out of the way of earnest founders.

And I think it mostly is (which I’m grateful for)

But at its core, it’s a pragmatic book with a pragmatic goal - which I’ll get into in a second. 

Notably, Farcaster is the glaring omission

Not a single mention of it or @dwr.eth or @v anywhere

This is obviously on purpose, but I’m not exactly sure why yet

Maybe it’s a “let’s not tip the scales” thing to avoid seeming biased

Once you connect @a16zcrypto bags to RWO’s pitch about an internet that’s post-corporate network, the book reads a bit different

They’re not ✨technically✨ mutually exclusive, but it does lengthen your pause before agreeing

That said, if we build the infrastructure right (and maintain active and LOUD voices) during the protocol shaping process that is ongoing now and into the future…

@a16z’s bags and their incentives will matter much less than they currently do. 

Like Chris says

“Don’t be evil” could be “Can’t be evil”

Back to the pragmatism. 

What is really going on here?

Why this book?

Why now?

I believe Read Write Own is the first major public salvo in a probably multi-year media war to legitimize crypto networks in the eyes of technologists, lawmakers, and ultimately users. 

This is probably a great thing for every Farcaster

a16z is a media powerhouse with a bunch of bigass funds attached - not the other way around. 

They want to shape the internet and how people use it

It started through their funding decisions and now it happens through a multi-pronged distribution system that jacks straight into the brains of “serious people”

This isn’t inherently a good or a bad thing, but it IS a centralizing thing. 

And Chris just spent 230 pages explaining to us why that’s potentially dangerous. 

So while their interests are at least temporarily aligned with mine and ours, it’s important to stay frosty, friends.

Fwiw, I applied to CSS last year (and didn’t get in), have met a handful of people who invest there, and have no other secret information sources other than the Farcaster scuttlebutt 

I’m basically a capitalist who wants a UBI catch layer to set a society wide quality of life floor

Also…

I’m building Seemore.tv to solve the glaring value capture issues w the modern Creator economy that Chris points out in Read Write Own. 

You should buy this book and read it.

You should buy it for your thoughtful friends.

And you should also keep your eyes open to revealed preferences as they are revealed 🫡

Who is “Read Write Own” written for?

It’s not immediately obvious to me, but there are some hints already. 

Big Tech is noticeably absent from the jacket, but Big (Disney + Nike) and Tech (Altman + Suleyman + Kelly) are both all in!

Mark Cuban as bait for business book readers is also telling.