In Praise of Ponzis(drorpoleg.com)
drorpoleg.com
In Praise of Ponzis
https://www.drorpoleg.com/in-praise-of-ponzis/
47 comments
> You’ll actively make online culture worse by making the signal (content worth sharing)
The implicit argument these people make is what you might call the financial-postmodernist one: all content is worthless and meaningless, except for its exchange-value.
The implicit argument these people make is what you might call the financial-postmodernist one: all content is worthless and meaningless, except for its exchange-value.
Hey Artists -
Would you like to make even less money than you already do by splitting your rewards with every single person who looked at the thing you did?
Would you like to make even less money than you already do by splitting your rewards with every single person who looked at the thing you did?
> What if we stopped trying to monetise every single action from every single person every single day?
But it is already monetized, we just don't get the profit.
But it is already monetized, we just don't get the profit.
I thought the idea was to have less middlemen?
No, its that there is no middlemen, but the function that the middlemen were doing gets done and now the profit he was making can go to the users and creators.
> and now the profit he was making can go to the users and creators
Conveniently using this speculative investment that I own a lot of and you don't as the payment currency!
Conveniently using this speculative investment that I own a lot of and you don't as the payment currency!
Sounds suspiciously like you're moving the middlemen around not removing them if a bunch of other people are being paid to do the same job.
No, there are no people being paid for the job, the job is automated so the profit of that job can go to other people not the middlemen. Kind of the opposite of how everything works right now where you get free as in beer software that becomes infrastructure and then starts to exploit that in every possible way.
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You could also punish people who vote for unpopular content. Similar to how captchas work, if you vote in the minority, you could be assumed to be a 'bot'. This would also require some kind of ML to account for your interests, so you would be compared against others with similar interests.
Assuming this is not sarcasm, this is probably the worst idea I've heard all month. If I were the king, I'd give less weight to people that vote in utterly conventional ways.
There is enough conformity without adding additional punishments for liking something majority dont like.
It seems like this suggestion is unpopular, so I'd better not upvote it.
If you're serious about finding real cultural value, you should do the exact opposite of what you just proposed.
Also, the premise is wrong. Lots of people that saw Gangnam Style liked it, they spent a nice moment watching it. They contributed in exchange with one or multiple views, and maybe a like, to promote this kind of content.
> What if we stopped trying to monetise every single action from every single person every single day?
Commoditization of labour (and of pretty much everything else TBH) is one of the founding pillars of the capitalism that survived pretty much unchanged from its inception to the modern days, so you proposition is a non-starter. You see, if you prohibit to monetise something that curbs the free entrepreneurial spirit and so inevitably lowers the efficiency and growth of the economy as a whole: if something can be done for profit, it should be done for profit and that will only improve the resource allocation and in the end, the wealth distribution too.
Commoditization of labour (and of pretty much everything else TBH) is one of the founding pillars of the capitalism that survived pretty much unchanged from its inception to the modern days, so you proposition is a non-starter. You see, if you prohibit to monetise something that curbs the free entrepreneurial spirit and so inevitably lowers the efficiency and growth of the economy as a whole: if something can be done for profit, it should be done for profit and that will only improve the resource allocation and in the end, the wealth distribution too.
I can’t stop thinking of the Tom Toro cartoon[1]:
“Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112030542/https://i.etsysta...
“Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112030542/https://i.etsysta...
Your argument rests on the assumption that capitalism is the best or only economic system.
It is not profitable to feed poor children. And we don't. 25% of children are food insecure in the US, one of the wealthiest countries not just in the modern day but the history of this planet.
It is not profitable to vaccinate the poor. And we didn't. COVAX still hasn't hit their original goal of vaccinating 20% of the world's poorest. Unfortunate that poor people get sick too and spread it without regard for class lines.
Capitalism is subsidized by human capital. Whether that human capital are literal chattel slaves or Honduran strawberry pickers coming to California after the US destabilized their countries.
And capitalism requires markets too, obviously. Have to unload that cheap shit. How do you do that? Gunboat diplomacy. Open up Japan, open up China, close the entirety of Latin America to any other industrial power, and profit. Maybe sit on the sidelines of a "great war" and then after the fact you can sell stuff to the survivors.
In the 21st century we reached the end of scarcity. For nation-states. Not for people. They're still disposable, just ask who is willing to sell their grandparents to save "the economy"
It is not profitable to feed poor children. And we don't. 25% of children are food insecure in the US, one of the wealthiest countries not just in the modern day but the history of this planet.
It is not profitable to vaccinate the poor. And we didn't. COVAX still hasn't hit their original goal of vaccinating 20% of the world's poorest. Unfortunate that poor people get sick too and spread it without regard for class lines.
Capitalism is subsidized by human capital. Whether that human capital are literal chattel slaves or Honduran strawberry pickers coming to California after the US destabilized their countries.
And capitalism requires markets too, obviously. Have to unload that cheap shit. How do you do that? Gunboat diplomacy. Open up Japan, open up China, close the entirety of Latin America to any other industrial power, and profit. Maybe sit on the sidelines of a "great war" and then after the fact you can sell stuff to the survivors.
In the 21st century we reached the end of scarcity. For nation-states. Not for people. They're still disposable, just ask who is willing to sell their grandparents to save "the economy"
> "Nonsense," you might say. "At the end of the day, you need to sell something; narratives are not enough." But aren't they? Another difference between the old world and ours is that we no longer sell things. In the past, the content was used to sell stuff: Executives from manufacturing companies got their TV channel buddies to produce Soap Operas in order to sell more soap. But today, content is not used to sell anything beyond itself. Everything is content, including your actions and behaviors. Why give them away for free?
To the extent that this is true - and quite possibly it is to some extent - it's pretty stark. This is the logic of the paperclip maximiser.
It's also a magnifier for socially destabilizing groupthink, because the important thing becomes not some grounded "fundamentals" but "what will everyone else think about this".
> But today, content is not used to sell anything beyond itself
Ah yes, the problem with Baudrillard is that he didn't monetize the simulacrum. Not ambitious enough.
To the extent that this is true - and quite possibly it is to some extent - it's pretty stark. This is the logic of the paperclip maximiser.
It's also a magnifier for socially destabilizing groupthink, because the important thing becomes not some grounded "fundamentals" but "what will everyone else think about this".
> But today, content is not used to sell anything beyond itself
Ah yes, the problem with Baudrillard is that he didn't monetize the simulacrum. Not ambitious enough.
> This means people were willing to pay a 10,000% premium in order to buy shares in a project that no longer has a purpose. And it wasn'y just a handful of people — a whole liquid market emerged. Yesterday, nearly two weeks after the failed option, the daily trading volume in $PEOPLE tokens was over $70,000,000. Why would anyone pay to buy a token that no longer has a purpose?
The fact that we can't distinguish self-trading from legitimate interest is a problem with crypto. There's no possible way to know why and the author's theory that it's "investors believing in the story" is no more or less plausible than my theory that the liquidity is 100% fake and is just a core group of people generating volume between their own wallets.
The fact that we can't distinguish self-trading from legitimate interest is a problem with crypto. There's no possible way to know why and the author's theory that it's "investors believing in the story" is no more or less plausible than my theory that the liquidity is 100% fake and is just a core group of people generating volume between their own wallets.
Does it really have to be self-trading though? Back in the poloniex days we traded a ton of shitcoin even though they were legitimately just Litecoin forks, they had no real value, no real use cases, but we traded them nonetheless because at the time some small popularity gain could make a dead coin valuable anyway and you could end up 100% in 24 hours for no reason other than some small time celebrity tweeting about it.
At the end of the day it was just speculation and it was fun.
At the end of the day it was just speculation and it was fun.
No, you’re right. It can be either self-trading or just unregulated gambling.
The upside is that it doesn't matter if its just one guy trading with himself, what matters is liquidity and you can't fake that (except if you are the owner of centralized exchanges, but those are terrible anyway).
I don't follow.
> the liquidity of a given token is a function of the number of buy and sell orders on the books
By trading with myself it looks like there's a lot of liquidity, no?
> the liquidity of a given token is a function of the number of buy and sell orders on the books
By trading with myself it looks like there's a lot of liquidity, no?
If you are actually trading with yourself it doesn't look like there is a lot of liquidity there is a lot of liquidity.
If I create my own coin which only I trade and I have two wallets. Wallet A places a buy for 1 coin at 1 cent. Wallet B fills the order. Wallet A places a sell order for 1 coin at 2c. Wallet B buys it. Rinse repeat and suddenly the coin is trading at 10k USD. Spin up more wallets and you suddenly make it seem like there’s liquidity except there isn’t because you’re not buying anyone else’s coins. This is literally how Scamcoin worked. - you could buy the coin but there were no buyers to offload your coins onto.
In this case you aren't really faking liquidity, you are faking the price, the liquidity is real (ie, you are spending for tx fees, the amount of x traded for y is really happening) vs a centralized exchange where the price is real and the liquidity is fake. There are scams on every turn, but liquidity pools kind of solve this specific problem, so you can have trust in the price even if there was just one guy doing all the exchange.
Isn't the end state of this kind of hype the same as tulip mania? Someone is left holding an asset that no longer has any value.
Yes
The title really isn't exaggerating, they are praising criminal behavior. The only thing is their example of the token $PEOPLE wasnt a ponzi scheme because it had a propose but it could easily have been if someone realized what could happen. Other people looking at the results of it will likely try to copy the process to make actual ponzi scheme's.
How he justifies it sounds exactly like an argument a scammer would use to justify their theft. A scammer might reason "i didnt take the money they willingly gave it" "I gave them value in the intricate story/passionate love letters/made them feel important/gave them purpose" "some people made money and they could have been one of them if they got out in time"
at the end he makes the argument that we no longer sell things but narratives hold value. The issue with his argument is informed consent. Informed is the key here he says that people buying the $PEOPLE token know its worthless except for being part of history. Thats not accurate real money was initially paid so many people will assign a value to it since it cost money despite what its current real value is. They would also be a part of it whether they put in a cent or a $1000 into it. it went so high in value because people speculated that their money would get them more future value in it than other more traditional options. but wait then its just a speculative investment like other crypto. Not really scammers use the narrative to deceive people of the real value. people pay for the equivalent of scams eg escorts, escape rooms, romance novel's if you convince them through a narrative that its real they pay far more.
i wrote too much already but his idea of paying people on completion of an action online is a refining and progression of the already damaging effect of targeted adverting and influencers. How much worse do you think scam advertisements and foreign and domestic manipulation could be if they could dangle a carrot instead of just a picture or video on the side?
I think any content creator dreams of making a simple narrative worth millions of dollars or being able to dangle money in front of their viewers to make them dance but as far as im concerned we have gotten too close to that reality already and doing so will just make things worse.
at the end he makes the argument that we no longer sell things but narratives hold value. The issue with his argument is informed consent. Informed is the key here he says that people buying the $PEOPLE token know its worthless except for being part of history. Thats not accurate real money was initially paid so many people will assign a value to it since it cost money despite what its current real value is. They would also be a part of it whether they put in a cent or a $1000 into it. it went so high in value because people speculated that their money would get them more future value in it than other more traditional options. but wait then its just a speculative investment like other crypto. Not really scammers use the narrative to deceive people of the real value. people pay for the equivalent of scams eg escorts, escape rooms, romance novel's if you convince them through a narrative that its real they pay far more.
i wrote too much already but his idea of paying people on completion of an action online is a refining and progression of the already damaging effect of targeted adverting and influencers. How much worse do you think scam advertisements and foreign and domestic manipulation could be if they could dangle a carrot instead of just a picture or video on the side?
I think any content creator dreams of making a simple narrative worth millions of dollars or being able to dangle money in front of their viewers to make them dance but as far as im concerned we have gotten too close to that reality already and doing so will just make things worse.
> The viewers who watched [Gangnam Style] earned nothing, even though many of them contributed and were critical to the video's ultimate success.
The author is wrong here, even though it rings true. Early viewers who shared a popular video before it was popular earn the reputation of knowing the next cool thing before everyone else does. They gain “I liked this band before it was cool -tokens”. That’s worth something among peers. If we start to pay out monetary value in addition to that, than we would actually overpay the early viewers. Market forces will eventually rebalance the equation such that early viewers will neglect the reputation part and just start sharing as many videos as possible regardless whether the personally think that those videos are the next cool thing.
The author is wrong here, even though it rings true. Early viewers who shared a popular video before it was popular earn the reputation of knowing the next cool thing before everyone else does. They gain “I liked this band before it was cool -tokens”. That’s worth something among peers. If we start to pay out monetary value in addition to that, than we would actually overpay the early viewers. Market forces will eventually rebalance the equation such that early viewers will neglect the reputation part and just start sharing as many videos as possible regardless whether the personally think that those videos are the next cool thing.
They also got to enjoy the music.
We are living in interesting times. Customers openly admit they prefer speculation over content.
From my view, this is all downstream from our monetary environment. If central banks can print trillions, why shouldn't private actors value and issue monopoly money? From there it descends into different preferences, variations and subgeneres of the same theme. Choose a token or NFT you identify with. Maybe you'd prefer something a bit more self ironic? Buy a "Yacht Club" NFT and maybe your lambo dreams will come true?
From my view, this is all downstream from our monetary environment. If central banks can print trillions, why shouldn't private actors value and issue monopoly money? From there it descends into different preferences, variations and subgeneres of the same theme. Choose a token or NFT you identify with. Maybe you'd prefer something a bit more self ironic? Buy a "Yacht Club" NFT and maybe your lambo dreams will come true?
If it is profitable it's not a ponzi, the basic feature of a ponzi is that there is no actual profit and the shareholders just take money from each other, or rather pay with liquidity if the ponzi is ongoing. But there actually is a profit to be made and it is made every day by centralized publishers, I welcome any model that would replace the current one, especially if it makes it better for the user.
Crypto is definitely more of a pyramid scheme than a ponzi scheme. You have to keep recruiting greater fools to be able to financially benefit from it yourself. That's the "profit" you are referring to. There's still quite a bit of overlap though.
I'm talking about doing videos like in the articles. And no normal cryptos are far from a pyramid scheme almost everything else in fiat and normal economies would fit better.
My god, no.
Those early in try to time it so they can liquidize and run before it collapses. They are hoping to earn a big profit by timing their exit.
Rube farming.
Ponzi aside, when you need to pay someone to do something you are communicating that the task is inherently unpleasant. Otherwise why would you need to pay someone to do it?
As a producer I may be able to bribe them with tokens to do something (views, votes, followers, etc.), but I'm not buying authentic engagement.
As a producer I may be able to bribe them with tokens to do something (views, votes, followers, etc.), but I'm not buying authentic engagement.
Not necessarily unpleasant - it could be that it requires skill (knowing which projects are more likely to go viral is one such skill)
A part or me does wonder if this is a natural step in the transition Buckminster Fuller spoke of to the time of abundance
Where do these crypto sites find themes for Dashboards and websites does anyone know. They are sleek as f*
> "People love a good story. And people believe that the value of this story will only increase over time."
I mean....maybe. But there has to be a moat to create some sort of limited access to the story.
The New York Yankees are an incredible story, most famous franchise in sports and located in what people refer to as the capital of the world.
Still in order to read the next chapter of the Yankees story you need to have 100$ on the side to go to the Bronx and watch it unfold.
Same thing with NFTs, when you are buying a Yankee hat you are paying royalties to the Yankees organization and every brand would fight tooth and nails to remove from the market chinese knock offs.
NFT people have embraced the concept of knockoffs because they think that the larger the distribution the more popular something would become.
Again...maybe, but human psyche is weird, as a fan I'd become suspicious if the Yankees started allwoing everybody in for free at the Yankee stadium.
If the author doesn't give a damn about protecting their work, then what does it tell you about their own perceived quality of the aforementioned work?
Sorry if there's anybody from Boston reading, the same is true for the Red Sox...kinda.
I mean....maybe. But there has to be a moat to create some sort of limited access to the story.
The New York Yankees are an incredible story, most famous franchise in sports and located in what people refer to as the capital of the world.
Still in order to read the next chapter of the Yankees story you need to have 100$ on the side to go to the Bronx and watch it unfold.
Same thing with NFTs, when you are buying a Yankee hat you are paying royalties to the Yankees organization and every brand would fight tooth and nails to remove from the market chinese knock offs.
NFT people have embraced the concept of knockoffs because they think that the larger the distribution the more popular something would become.
Again...maybe, but human psyche is weird, as a fan I'd become suspicious if the Yankees started allwoing everybody in for free at the Yankee stadium.
If the author doesn't give a damn about protecting their work, then what does it tell you about their own perceived quality of the aforementioned work?
Sorry if there's anybody from Boston reading, the same is true for the Red Sox...kinda.
What if we stopped trying to monetise every single action from every single person every single day?
People used their free time to see a video, liked it, and shared it. Their contribution had an impact because it was free. If you change the equation so that sharing videos is remunerated, you (or your bots) will share any turd hoping to hit gold. You’ll actively make online culture worse by making the signal (content worth sharing) indistinguishable from the noise.