Content coins are a bad idea because any individual piece of art is already (and always has been) worth nothing. The primary value that art possesses is in the aggregate. Individual pieces are (mostly) useless.

This is why the only times artists have been able to capture even a tiny sliver of the value they create is in creating scenes. Impressionism, punk, the factory, bloomsbury, the beats.

Writer ✍️ | Creepy stories: unnerv.ing 👁️ | Essays: paragraph.xyz/@driftless ⚡️

For content coins to be successful, they will need to find a way to reward scene-building (and maintenance) over speculation. Because otherwise, putting a ticker next to a single creative expression is like installing a giant spotlight on a rundown house. Instead of rolling up your sleeves and actually fixing anything you’re saying, “hey everyone, check out this dump!”

Content coins will only spread awareness. Awareness that your art is useless. As if creating isn’t hard enough already.

Nobody needs to see so starkly how little the world values their output. Nobody needs to see their creative expressions go to zero over and over again.

It’s hard enough to put your stuff online and see zero likes. Now you get to see yourself, your friends, and your few fans lose money over it, too. Nice!

Platforms always want maximum users—that’s how they become valuable. But scenes create value differently: through curation, community, and context.

Platforms must overcome the Dunbar number; scenes work within it, prioritizing meaningful social relationships. The two are necessarily at odds.

When platforms try to create scene-like dynamics at platform scale, it’s like trying to use a flamethrower to put out a fire. They amplify the very dynamics that devalue individual creative work, namely winner-take-all. On platforms, single creators can satisfy almost all of the demand.

Tech solutionism fundamentally misunderstands creativity. It approaches art as a distribution problem to be optimized when art is a method for self actualization (the top of Maslow’s pyramid). 

Once our basic needs are met—food, shelter, safety, community—we create. Not because we're seeking financial reward, but because creation is how we become fully human. We need to make art, and we need to be seen making it. 

This is why platforms that try to "fix" art with financialization are using the wrong tools for the wrong problem. It's like trying to measure love with a ruler or weigh curiosity on a scale. 

Content coins apply efficiency metrics to something that gains its value precisely from inefficiency, from human labor, from context, from the messy business of being alive and seen by others within a community that cares.

Content coins will only benefit established and entrenched creatives. They can post pictures of their lunch and watch speculators pump its value within hours, while talented (but unknown) creatives watch their coins crash to zero repeatedly.

But the platform benefits regardless of who wins or loses. The individual creator bears all the psychological cost.