Scarcity in Web3: how to become a winner in a decentralized world

With Web3 The rise of , We are entering a new era of competitive advantage . Scarcity is changing again , So is the basis of competition . This article ( We are about to appear Web3 Introduction part ) Around this new scarcity and how companies will compete in this new era , Put forward some preliminary ideas .

Link to the original text ：

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/oruR6YFwiLv9OasIlsae5w

Original author : Sangeet Paul Choudary

Creator ：Skyhigh Feng @DAOrayaki.org

Reviewer ：[email protected]

original text : Web3 competitive advantage: Winning in open and decentralized ecosystems

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How to compete when it can be forked ？

Competition is the art of acquiring and managing scarce resources to create advantages . Changes in technology have changed the scarcity of resources , Thus changing the basis of competition .“ New competitors ” Looks like it's with “ Old competitors ” Different , To a large extent, it is because the current scarce resources are different from the previous scarce resources .

Openness adds an interesting dimension to competition . Open organizations can discover potential capabilities , Make it rich , Transformed its scarcity . similarly , Opening up scarce resources before , Make it a commodity , And change the basis of competition .

Competition is accompanied by scarcity

To understand the new scarcity , We need to better understand how companies acquire and manage scarce resources .

Resource based competition

In the industrial age , The basis of enterprise competition is to obtain scarce resources . Scarce resources include access to special sources of supply ( Such as oil fields and mines ) Or unique intellectual property ( Such as the formula of Coca Cola ).

For companies in the digital age , Most of these will turn into competitive advantages . Google's search algorithms continue to be protected as trade secrets , This is also the key resource to provide them with competitive advantages .

When Airbnb Succeeded in seizing Craigslist, And will Craigslist When the user base is pulled to its own level ,Craigslist Lost its scarce resources —— Listing information created by the seller —— Transferred to the Airbnb. As a response to ,Craigslist Start trying to emulate... To all Airbnb The integrated start-up company issued a stop and stop lawyer letter .

Resource based competition is centered on the acquisition and management of scarce resources . Access to scarce resources may involve access to new sources of supply , Or get the best innovators who can create unique intellectual property . therefore , The management of these scarce resources requires the establishment of necessary moats ( Both structural and legal ) , To prevent others from accessing these resources , And use these scarce resources to gain competitive advantage .

Web2: Data as a new scarcity

With the rise of social networks , Enterprises have found a new competitive foundation : User data . Scarcity changes from merely acquiring and managing internal resources to acquiring and managing user data .

data collection —— Web2 Proponents of are trying to get user data —— So the company has developed a new way to let users submit data ( Remember LinkedIn Do you want to complete the progress bar for your profile ?) And become a controversial point , At the same time, it has also developed a complete back-end industry for data exchange and processing .

It is extremely uncomfortable to compare tillage types to data collection , When the user “ Sow ” Their attention , The data may be collected . therefore , The competition in data is actually the competition in attention . The company invests in behavior design , With “ attract ” user , And let them increase the consumption of data circularly . The dark user experience is secretly extracting data . A merger of companies follows . When an industrial age company acquires competitors with similar or complementary scarce resources , Companies in the digital age are busy acquiring similar or complementary user concerns and data resources .Facebook Acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, Google bought Waze, All this is to hoard more scarce resources .

To manage this scarce resource , Companies initially invested heavily in big data processing technology (2008-2013 year ) , Then turn the focus to using artificial intelligence and machine learning to create value (2010 Years later ).

A centralized platform authorized by a loose data protection regulatory regime , There is competition on this new scarcity . But this situation is changing day by day .GDPR And other data protection systems make data extraction more and more difficult . Again ,Web3 The rise of indicates the arrival of a new era , In this day and age , Ecosystems can be organized without centralization and extraction .

Scarcity is changing again ！

Web3: Tracking new scarcity

Web3 The rise of has changed many assumptions about scarcity . Data is portable , No longer the basis of competition . Users can easily switch Services , Users' attention and data may no longer be like Web2 The world is visited like that 、 Collect and manage .

Web3 The open ecosystem has also eroded Web2 Vertical integration benefits of the platform . for example , As the user interface separates from the underlying platform , For the user interface ( And user attention ) The competition will be in Web3 In .Web2 The market platform is vertically integrated into the search interface , It guarantees the monopoly of both . Managing market transactions Web3 The protocol may support many search agents , As I explained earlier .

for example , image Ebay Such a market will allow sellers to enter 、 Seller analysis 、 Buyers settle in 、 Buyer decision support 、 The search function is bundled with the transaction infrastructure . All of these components will be in Web3 Split the world .

therefore , We moved from a central market maker architecture to a decentralized agent-based architecture , All of this goes through a Shared common protocol to coordinate . This is like the Hollywood style talent market , Minus the relationship based checks .

that , Where will the new scarcity appear ？

The participation of developers will become a new scarcity in the era of open ecosystem .

As I am 《 Split and split 》 As explained in , Developer participation is Web3 The core value driving force of ecosystem , Because the market infrastructure is no longer built by the central platform business , Instead, ecosystem developers build modules that complement the core protocols . Developer involvement is Web3 The main value sources of ecosystem infrastructure layer . For developers , This requires developers to invest time 、 resources 、 Ability, etc .

There is another reason for the scarcity of developers . Developer engagement and resource commitment involve high multi hosting costs ( The cost developers pay to build multiple platforms at the same time ). By building and investing resources in specific ecosystems , Developers implicitly choose not to devote their limited time and resources to others ( Competitive and non competitive ) The ecological system .

Not all developer ecosystems are the same

Managing the developer ecosystem is also Web2 An important consideration for the platform . that Web3 How did it change ？

In order to understand Web3 Differences in the developer ecosystem , We need to revisit the building blocks argument I made in my earlier Newsletter .

In any developer ecosystem , Developers perform two key categories of activities : They may help with solution development ( Value creation ) , Or they might create different integrations that drive the solution ( Value distribution ).

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Open source projects mainly rely on the developer ecosystem for solution development . Then through all the channels of the traditional company ( for example Redhat And Linux The relationship between ) Package the software 、 Deliver and support . This is shown in the upper left quadrant .

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many Web2 The platform is related to the developer ecosystem . However , The core platform of the value proposition is built and delivered by internal developers . majority Web2 The platform depends on the developer ecosystem , Or create a supplement to the core platform technology , Or establish integration and promote the use of the platform . The latter in Stripe and Twilio This is particularly evident in such companies , They provide api The function of ( Serve as a service ). These companies have invested heavily in the developer ecosystem , But mainly to promote the use of solutions ( Value distribution ). This is shown in the lower right quadrant .

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Web3 The uniqueness of the ecosystem lies in （ In this respect , Any compliance Building Blocks Thesis Ecosystem of ）, These ecosystems promote the use of solutions , Attract developers to engage in value creation 、 Solution development and value allocation . This is shown in the upper right quadrant .

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for example ,Lens Protocol Our developer engagement spans solution development and usage . Similarly ,Boson Protocol The bug bounty program development platform uses developers to participate in the development of solutions and security , and Boson Of trend V2 The roadmap extends the scope of developers' participation in solution development and solution use .

Web3 Ecosystem value and defense

As mentioned above ,Web3 The ecosystem is unique , The value creation of the whole value chain is driven by the developer ecosystem .

Web3 The project needs to establish a developer engagement program for solution development , To accumulate value for their token marks . As the solution becomes more comprehensive , The value of tokens will also increase .

Equally important ,Web3 The project needs to encourage the use of the solution through integration and establish a developer engagement plan . When the solution is integrated into more projects , The defensibility of the solution will increase . New competitors sharing code bases may copy code bases , However, it is difficult to replicate the numerous integrations established through the participation of developers in the project , These projects drive the use of solutions .

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That's why Web3 Our competitive advantage will revolve around the ability to attract developers .

The thriving developer ecosystem performs two transformative functions .

They increase the value of tokens ( Increased the attractiveness of the project ) , And attract more developers in a self reinforcing cycle .

They increase defensibility ( Make sure that it is more difficult to replace relevant projects ).