cdixon

Toys, Secrets, and Cycles: Lessons from the 2000s

I started my internet career in the early 2000s during the dot-com bust. It's hard to picture this now, but the internet was a thing that people used only intermittently, to check email or plan travel or do some research. The average internet user spent about 30 minutes a day online, compared to about 7 hours today. To use the internet, you had to sit down in front of a desktop PC and "log on" (most people still had dial-up), nothing like the always-on, high-speed mobile internet we use ...

Collected web3 twitter threads

Why web3 matters Chris Dixon @cdixon There’s a lot of talk lately about the possibility of a prolonged financial downturn, reminiscent of 2008. 2008 was a difficult time for many people.

Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance. Blockchains are the new app stores. Tokens are a new digital primitive, analogous to the website. Going from Web 2 to Web 3 - “Your take rate is my opportunity.” The web3 playbook: using token incentives to bootstrap new networks.

Some reasons to build your startup in web3

I recently had the chance to meet some great web2 founders considering moving into web3. Web3 is trendy now, so it’s important to cut through the noise and highlight the right long-term reasons to start a web3 project. Here are some good reasons to build a web3 project:

• Product
• Wikipedia is simply a better encyclopedia than traditional encyclopedias because it harnesses the knowledge and creativity of its community.
• DAOs are novel web3 constructs that enable collaboration and decision-making.

Embrace and extend

Bill Gates had a very clever tactic for responding to open alternatives to Microsoft proprietary tech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish He specifically used these tactics against web1 protocols/standards and open source software.

Web3 critics misunderstand decentralization

A recent criticism of web3 is that it isn’t actually decentralized, because there are centralized services in the mix, such as NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, and data availability services like Alchemy. 🧵 This criticism is based on a mistaken understanding of what web3 advocates mean by decentralization.

How web3 data portability reduces the power of centralized services

For people new to web3, one thing that can be confusing is looking at user profiles on services like OpenSea. For example, here is my OpenSea profile: https://opensea.io/cdixon.eth

NFTs and ownership

NFTs make art, music, writing, games, and other creative content more abundant, not more scarce. Many critics of NFTs claim the opposite — that NFTs restrict access to creative content. This is not a critique of NFTs, but rather a critique of a fictional caricature of NFTs.

Blockchains and performance

Blockchains are computers that can make commitments. You pay some performance overhead for this property. If someone says something like “blockchains are slower than traditional computers” — yes that is true. It’s a trade off between performance and making long term commitments to users and developers.

Seven types of NFTs

NFTs are new digital primitives, similar in flexibility and generality to past digital primitives like the website. Here are 7 types of NFTs I’m excited about:

1. Art: These can be part of a collection like Punks and Bored Apes.
2. Collectibles: Unique items or property in games or communities.
3. Music: Ownership of songs or albums.
4. Gaming items: In-game assets that can be traded or sold.
5. Domain names: Unique blockchain domain names.
6. Event tickets: Secure ownership of tickets to events.
7. Real estate: Tokenizing ownership of properties.

The internet is not yet mature

There is a widespread view that the internet and software industry is now mature, that the historical pattern of disruptive revolutions every 10-15 years is now over.

Economic loops for startups

Let’s say you run a startup that has a successful product. One useful exercise is mapping out the typical economic loop from start to finish, and then considering the startup’s position within that loop.

The myth of "ETH killers"

The myth of "ETH killers" — why demand for blockchains will always outpace supply 🧵.

Usability/monetization death spirals

Certain categories of web2 websites and apps fall into a usability-monetization death spiral. This isn’t the fault of the sites or users, but a systemic issue.

What’s next in web3

What’s next in web3? 🧵 First, where are we today? Almost 100% of founders in top gaming studios are exploring NFTs in some way.

Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance

A very high percentage of the software in the world is open source.