Preface: Web3 Social
Most of the current SocialFi products can only meet the social + financial needs of Crypto Native users on the pure chain for the time being. In the future, there will certainly be SocialFi products that can be widely used and meet the social + financial needs of the real world both on and off the chain. It can help us integrate social into all aspects of our lives, including video entertainment, games, music, fitness, etc. We can join corresponding communities, carry out these interests and earn tokens; Web 3.0 is much more powerful when the delightful SocialFi is skillfully combined with basic human relationships, because ultimately, we want to find ways to build mutual connections in this world in real and positive ways.
Web2's social offerings are highly centralized and have a lot of drawbacks when it comes to user data, which is one of the most important motives that Makalink enters this market.
Data ownership issues: The Web2 centralized platform takes user data and creator content as its core "data assets" and "data barriers"; But for the user, they have little control and management over the data. For example, if FaceBook or x.com try to ban your account, you will lose your content and followers, and more importantly, you will probably have no way to Sue. This creates a great sense of insecurity for users.
Data privacy issues: All data is stored in the company's centralized database and managed by a centralized platform, which may have the risk of data leakage. It is worth mentioning that all kinds of social platforms collect user data basically without the user's knowledge.
For example, one of the main ways to monetize the Internet is advertising. The platform mainly relies on the advertising revenue generated by the content traffic of creators and the realization of user data, but only a small part of these revenues flows into the creators and users.
With the peak of the dividend of mobile Internet, the business imagination space of Internet manufacturers has been repeatedly compressed. The overall performance of social products in the Web2 world is tired and lacks of innovation, and the market has not seen an exciting mainstream phenomenon.
Opportunities are born out of crises, and problems such as low revenue for Web2 creators, vicious competition, and platform hegemony are all forcing the rise of SocialFi. With the paradigm shift from Web 2 to Web 3, looking back at the Web 3 SocialFi track, there are a number of very viable entrepreneurs who are thriving in the soil based on blockchain infrastructure.
Web3's blockchain-based decentralized technology enables users' creative content, social relationship data, identity reputation, etc., to achieve decentralization and composability without the need for a centralized platform. These changes will bring new paradigm solutions to users' data ownership, revenue rights, privacy, and other issues, and build a more user-focused social network.
The birth of SocialFi mainly solves the following problems of the current Web 2 traditional social:
Ownership of data rights: In the Web 2 platform, users' social data is stored in the server of the operator, and the data belongs to the platform; In SocialFi, the user's social data is stored on the chain, and the data property rights belong to the user. Relying on the characteristics of blockchain, user data cannot be tampered with by the project party, and it is easy to retrieve;
Benefit distribution problem: Under the algorithm of traditional social platforms, users and platforms have unbalanced benefit distribution in traffic realization, and the platform takes a large percentage of benefits; In the decentralized social context of SocialFi, there will be no problem of third-party sharing;
Privacy issues: All accounts in traditional social networking require real identity information for KYC, and the background stored information is very easy to be leaked and sold to specific institutions; SocialFi, based on Web 3, uses a wallet to log in, and the anonymous nature can protect user privacy.
However, it is worth noting that the above problems do exist in the traditional social field, but is the need and urgency to solve the problem really great? We don't think so. At present, Web 2 still accounts for the vast majority of users, while Web 3 has fewer users in the first place, among which there are fewer users who choose Web 3 for communication. Social networking emphasizes network effects, and in the case of fewer target users at present, The SocialFi application layer will not evolve smoothly (but there is no denying the long-term benefits of SocialFi). In the early days of the industry, it is wise to focus on the middle and upper reaches.
Speculative social or SocialFi can be the beginning of a "real world asset" that we never thought of before. Instead of thinking about how to place Treasury bonds on the chain, we should think about how to introduce and develop a consumer culture while giving it new forms of product such as the status embedded in token ownership.
Perhaps we still don't realize that Web3 is commerce, but rather a novel form of a new product - a token. Tokens tie together the concept of culture and product. The product is the subject of a reflexive narrative that can change form over time. Similarly, conspicuous consumption is fundamentally a means to achieve certain goals (status, pleasure, stimulation, etc.), and the same is true of tokens.
But there are also more social tribes on Makalink with specific goals in the market and future monetization flowing back to token holders.
We've moved to new heights of socializing - and we've also transformed online commerce into a more bottom-up attribution culture built around token networks. In my opinion, this challenges the conventional view of business and translates the Meme premium of tokens into brand purchasing power.
The overall logic loop of SocialFi based on Web 3 has been determined (the biggest difference from Web 2 is the shift in profit distribution logic and model) that SocialFi value capture focuses on social capital. Social capital is a kind of trust between individuals and individuals or groups and groups based on social networking and reciprocity, and a resource brought by people's position in the social/organizational structure.
The acquisition of social capital is very similar to POW proof, which is a proof of work that requires a long-term cost of time or other costs. This is also reflected in people's lives, why Musk or other big V can do so that thousands of people follow his guidance? Its strong social capital comes from Musk and other big Vs who have worked hard for a long time to enhance exposure.
If the above scenarios are capitalized or benefited, then the logic is simplified to - if the big V wants to realize his social capital (obtain token), then he needs to spend time and money to prove the value of his social capital (POW workload). Is this very similar to BTC/ETH? This also shows that Web 3 based on blockchain and cryptocurrency is very suitable for SocialFi development. That is, the essence of SocialFi can be understood as a big V (or an individual) building their own social capital (that is, personal brand, reputation) through their own influence under the technology based on blockchain and cryptocurrency, on the one hand, and seeking benefits for their fans on the other.
However, it is precisely because of the above logic that SocialFi now has big problems:
Want decentralized social, but can't do decentralized in nature. As in the POW example above, the earlier a player joins SocialFi or has already acquired a large amount of social capital in the Web 2 space, the easier it is for a player to acquire a large amount of social capital in SocialFi, while the later the player joins, the more difficult it is for them to acquire more social capital. The earlier users join, the more likely their content will be exposed, and the later users join, the more difficult it will be to expose their content. Early adopters can create a very powerful social monopoly.
For social platforms, content mining is very difficult to define. Once the platform decides to start content mining, the platform's content will only become garbage under the influence of the hordes of interlinked armies. Referring to Web2 social platforms, the consequences of spam content on social platforms are disasters, but it is difficult to cold start without opening content mining. Therefore, an appropriate set of content mining incentives is very necessary to innovate.
For social platforms and token issuance platforms, enabling the value of platform tokens is more important. It is difficult to enable tokens on social platforms. As can be seen from the failure of the Monaco yacht, the result of low enabling tokens on platforms is a death spiral. At present, BBS which is about to go online will innovate in enabling platform tokens, which requires a certain period of observation. For the tokens of the token issuance platform, if your own token is associated with the fan token, this also depends on the mechanism of the platform. Currently, Rally's token mechanics are better than Roll's, but with less power.
Fewer users. At present, the daily active address of Ethereum is about 500,000, and the daily active address of BSC is about 1 million, in order to build an active social network, the current base of social network users is still quite small.
Makalink still has a long way to go, its track size is still small, the mechanism is still relatively primitive, and the Web 3 native population is still small. However, in line with the trend of the development of The Times, under the background of the imminent emergence of Web 3, the use of social + DeFi combination, the rise of SocialFi track will be the general trend.
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