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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/0to1
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Jesse Walden pfp
Jesse Walden
@jesse
Variant Thesis: Ownership as keystone of user experience, bootstraps networks bigger faster. Works best when: 1) There is a moral/normative imperative—a movement that people want to participate in. Skin in the game enhances belief, resulting in a more exciting/engaged experience. Examples: “chancellor on brink,” “world computer”, “open finance/internet capital markets”, “actually open AI” etc. 2) There is a product that people love and intuitively want to own, where skin in the game of investment enhances the experience of using the product, sometimes with additional utility. Examples (fewer come to mind because regulatory red tape has made it difficult to distribute ownership to product users, as compared with protocols): Digital Art (NFTs), Tesla, Uniswap, Hyperliquid, etc. If you’re not leaning into one of these two things, ownership may be a really expensive/ineffective way to scale network effects. Thoughts?
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Philip Sheldrake
@sheldrake
I sense this is going somewhere very interesting!

 1/2 To attempt to paraphrase your cast @jesse, it has been unimaginative (putting it politely) to define web3 in terms of read-write-own. While the Variant homepage leads with “Investing in an internet that turns users into owners”, are you perhaps setting out to revise the thesis? If so, we’d love to help!

 A purpose proposes (etymologically in fact!) you put skin in the game. To take up the proposal is to put something of value at risk. Attention. Money. Social capital. Anything you value. To take up the proposal is to expect something of value to be created. From a self-interest. Or from a system-interest. And ideally both. To take up the proposal is to identify with it, and be seen to identify with it.
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Philip Sheldrake
@sheldrake
2/2 Ownership is one way to signify skin in some games. And in other games, applying the concept of property over-extends the concept, frustrating long-term value creation in the process. Think anti-rivalrous resources. Intellectual property comes into scope. The English monopoly rights legislation of 1624 was a huge leap forward for incentivizing innovation, but it’s widely appreciated for many decades now that the IP system is no longer fit for purpose. IP is a malignant consequence of a series of unfortunate historic accidents and path dependencies. This 17th Century industrial age contrivance is woefully inadequate for the 21st Century knowledge age. There hasn’t been much choice. Now there is.
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