Digital Property is Broken: How web3 Fixes It
Digital Property is Broken: How web3 Fixes It
Accounts Are Created Free. But Everywhere They Are In Chains.
Hi, I’m Michael. And this is Crypto Creatives. The best newsletter about the Web3 Creator Economy. If you’re new here, consider subscribing. 1 free email every week!
Participation trophy culture has ruined us. We all think that we’re special. What’s worse, we project that feeling onto everything.
The worst example is the internet.
tHe aGe oF dIgItaL REvolUtIoN
We have this underlying assumption that nothing like this has ever happened before. What’s the end result of this kind of thinking? We ignore the lessons of history.
To. Our. Fucking. Peril.
In reality, the question of digital property is just a 21st-century version of the biggest question of the 20th century.
What is Property?
The concept of property is pretty straightforward. It’s something you own. But not all property is created equal. There’s an important distinction we need to make.
Private property - a property that produces profit. A business, rental units, etc. Something that makes passive income.
Personal property - things you own that don’t produce a profit. Your house, pets, clothes, garden, etc.
The difference between the two is the ceiling. Private property is unlimited. A single person can own entire industries, housing units, etc, and still want more. There’s no logical stopping point. No ceiling.
Personal property is a little different. Even the most excessive consumer among us has a limit. There’s a point you reach when you have enough.
“Do I really need another cat?”
Private property swallowed Europe whole in the 1700s. Like any sweeping change, it was plagued with problems. It turns out that the profit incentive (created by private property) is really good at motivating people.
But maybe… it's too good at motivating people.
The Antithesis
This new system of unlimited private property had critics from day 1. Thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau pointed out that most wealth ends up in just a few hands.
A generation later, Marx called for the abolition of private property. This idea was based on one important assumption:
Private property of the few will increasingly take from the personal property of the many.
Basically, rich people will keep finding ways to nickel & dime us until they own the entire economy & everything in it. After all, if there is no limit to private property, why would they ever stop?
This resonated with millions of people because of the stark contrast between life before and after private property.
Before private property - most people live in the country, grow their own food, and spend most of their life growing that food. Life is hard but bearable. There’s no opportunity of getting rich but you have all the personal property you need.
After private property - farmland has been privatized and peasants fled to cities for factory work. There, they work in unsafe conditions for 16 hours a day. At night, they pack into apartment buildings like sardines while the boss lives in a mansion. Life isn’t just bad. It’s unbearable. Fueled by rampant wealth inequality.
Private property was booming. Personal property was dying.
We recognized this as inherently wrong. No one should be increasing their profits (private property) by denying another person the necessities of life (personal property).
That’s just slavery with extra steps.
Thankfully, we’ve made a lot of progress addressing this issue. However, there is one aspect of life where this is still happening. And it’s worse than it’s ever been…
Your Consciousness For Sale
Your consciousness is the way you think. Your decision-making process. Who and what you are.
There is no greater example of personal property.
It should belong to you and only you. And for most of history, this wasn’t something we had to worry about. There was no way to record it. And even if someone did, who’s going to want it?
Everything changed with the internet.
Now, we use software created by big tech. Most of it’s free for you. But that’s because you’re not the customer. You’re the product.
Big tech tracks everything you do online. They record your consciousness. Turn your consciousness into data. And sell your data to the highest bidder.
When your data belongs to you, it’s personal property. When it belongs to them, it’s private property.
This is an abomination of abominations. The greatest theft in human history. Anyone who isn’t angry about this simply does not understand it well enough.
Big tech companies are worth billions of dollars. They’re not creating billions of dollars of goods and services. They’re stealing your consciousness and selling it for a profit.
But, here’s the thing. We already know this.
And yet, we all still use this shit. Why? Because, in practice, it’s impossible not to. Imagine living a modern life without a digital presence? No Google searches. No social media friends. No music and movies. No remote work.
The truth is, we’re all beholden to this technology. Modern life is impossible without it. Telling people to “just stop using it” is as helpful as telling a meth addict to “just get clean.”
And the worst part?
Your consciousness can be sold to anyone. Literally anyone. Predatory organizations. Terrorists. The government (but I repeat myself).
We all want to own our consciousness. To make our data personal property again.
Simply put, there is one option to do this.
web3: Balancing Personal & Private Property
The reason big tech exploits our data is because of the incentive structures guiding them. Don’t forget, they’re corporations after all. They only want to make money.
web3 offers better incentive structures. It’s an entirely new way to direct and organize human life.
This new tech forces industry leaders to remain accountable.
If a web3 project starts exploiting users like big tech, do you know what happens? Users fork the project. That’s exactly what happened when Justin Sun tried taking over Steemit.
The power is with the many instead of the few.
In web3, your consciousness is your personal property. It belongs to you. Not the corporation that owns the software you use.
And if a web3 project ever crosses that line? They have to face the consequences of the free market. Consequences that will never apply to Facebook or Google who so obviously take us for fools and are rewarded with billions in profit.
Freedom is the noblest virtue. To have power and autonomy over our own lives. Our own minds. And the struggle for web3 is the struggle for freedom.
If we’re going to take back our consciousness, this is how we’ll do it. Not with violence. Not with government regulation. But by building something better.
