The Future We Need And Deserve, A System That Works For Us, And The Biggest Roadblock Keeping Us From Living (and making a living) In The Future
Imagine mainstream NFT tokens and Smart Contracts on the go, available for the layman to develop, alter, apply, and mint as easily as they might post a picture to Instagram. Of course, now that picture is protected from replication, a one of a kind selfie, meme, nood, or maybe just a shot of your latest culinary recipe, or the first face your dog has ever made. Perhaps it also now contains a time limit acting as a self destruction countdown timer, or maybe it keeps a detailed list of which users have seen it or maybe it is part of a collectible series of educational photos that teaches which plants and fungi are edible on the Pacific Trail and you plan on printing your blog as a book at a later date, and don't want your photos or words stolen to be published on someone else's nature blog-
What matters is that you can do this without knowing code, or being a techie beyond basic app usage.
An app that makes the minting of media into nft smart contracts available to everyone, and makes it as easy as loading a picture, video, meme, or shitpost onto insta/ fb/ or ytube. Pair an app that normalizes smart contract minting on content with a blockchain social media platform- many exist in one way or another, copying or mirroring popular mainstream services like Twitter, YouTube, or even Quora, and combined you have the best of both worlds: Monetized Social Media For The Individual, for Every Individual, not just "The Popular Ones". By simply posting you have protected your content from copyright infringement and piracy, no matter what it is, and gave it value and scarcity. Sure, minting a token every time you make a post would require small fees to ensure, but that fee would remove the need for advertising to monetize the site, meaning no commercials, no sponsors , no pop ups. Instead a single token would act as the currency of the site, and would offer a plethora of uses to enhance the experience of both content creators and viewers. For starters the tokens could be spent creating posts, as initially mentioned, other uses would include "staking" functions, both to be frozen, or staked as a way of boosting posts for spreading clout, popularity, and even advertising services, as well as to act as a measure of dividends that would be paid to users in equal proportion to staked investment. Tokens could be used to pay for the server room to create groups and artist pages (both public and private) but, more importantly, tokens could take the place of reactions, likes, and other digital "pats on the back" which are an okay tool for measuring popularity or to flirt or bully in as simplistic a method possible by using a few emojies instead of a actual language worth of words. Tokens would mean more. Tips would mean more. Shared with fellow creators as an actual reward for a job well done it would be acknowledgement and a payment for the services of entertainment, a tip for a post that inspired you or informed you or excited you in a sexual connotation or maybe just a dumb joke that gave you a dumb and healthy laugh. A token of value instead of a "like" showing attention paid, a payment for the services of a content creator that helps the content creator to survive or to pay to continue to create and to mint. Imagine Facebook and Onlyfans had a freespeech baby that paid its creators instead of selling them out to advertisers and databanks so that out of touch administrators like Zuckerberg get rich while relying on the work of those more needy of attention and recognition than the cash rewards they deserve for the time, attention, and content that keeps users scrolling and advertisers paying. Think of nudes and videos of digital sex workers and performers producing 100 percent profits to the models and not the platforms or industry pimps. The same technology would put an end to revenge porn and sharing of noods without consent after a breakup. Imagine buying a photo set or videi from an egirl and knowing it is the only copy in existence. Or that a fan art commission of your waifu is the only one in existence, no one else will ever see her in the wedding dress or poses you choose. She's collectible. Think of thriving art scenes that will grow, scenes where our friends get paid to create and share - instead of advertising themselves constantly to sell a drawing for a one time profit, instead imagine they are paid a few cents from every person that sees the post, and every time they post a new drawing! Think of a social media where every memer, altlit method actor, and political commentator is recognized as magazine curators, modern authors, or independent news sources, and they are recognized through the success of monetization because you all spent a little extra time moving to a different corner of the internet. Imagine a internet that paid to have its content protected, and therefore free speech was praised and not punished, imagine an administration that works as a service for the user, working to protect your rights, identity, and intellectual property. What you deserve, Not a salesman selling your identity, attention, and content like a commodity to be milked, all while policing you to stay in line, making your harvesting simple and without hassle. Imagine a better internet. The internet I dream of pays artist to keep it alive with substance and recognizes each of us as the actors, directors, stage hands, and wardrobe techs of this show, and not the consumer at home on the couch watching it in their sweatpants. It's not that hard to get here. Almost all of these services already exist, albeit scattered and left unused by those with the most to gain by utilizing them. A few basic classes on Cryptocurrency and a migration to blockchain social media are the most important and easiest steps to making my dream internet a reality The biggest roadblock to that is not the minimal education required or finding the platforms, then streamlining them into a popular unified service. The biggest roadblock isn't even convincing people to make minimal investments, which would cost no more than a Netflix subscription, or a paid account on LiveJournal or WordPress. The biggest roadblock is working together with the community, AS a community, so that we might all reap the rewards. The biggest roadblock is the selfishness of each and every one of us that whispers in our subconscious, saying "why poor forth effort and investment for the sake of others that have yet to invest themselves? Why should I educate or advertise? Why should I toil and suffer the groundwork to reward everyone when they are not here to suffer with me? Why do they deserve a better internet, or to be paid to create, when they cling to a broken system that feeds on them for no reason more complex than because their comfort zone is delicate and they still believe that success is a scarce commodity only afforded to the celebrities and genius, that art without a paycheck is a hobby, and a paycheck only goes to professionals who are promoted by the label, the publisher, curator, by the system that raised us to be artists and rock stars, and then only gave a select few of us a contract, the wall space or air time or audition to be seen? Why should those who have given up so easily be given the gift and opportunity of a internet that works for them? Why should I work for a world that rewards the weak?" 4 It doesn't require a art school education or PhD in classical Roman sculpture to dedicate time and energy to a personal art project or quality page dedicated to a niche interest like the tiny genitalia of art from a different time and to share it and entertain or educate or inspire *somebody* and It doesn't require a computer sciences degree or a thousand dollars of Cryptocurrency to use blockchain based social media and to utilize staking and dividend tokens within it. It doesn't take a pirate mastermind to decide that you aren't paying for HBO or Netflix anymore and can pirate popular movies and TV without Tom Cruise losing a dollar and it doesn't take a philanthropist to take that saved Netflix money and to give it to the internet personalities artists musicians and social commentators that we ACTUALLY interact with and learn from and been off to and challenge and share with and appreciate on daily basis. It doesn't take this entire essay to explain how this cycle that rewards our community would result in a more enriching and cultured internet experience and a more financially sound and sustainable WeirdFaceBook, and it doesn't take a desperately impoverished dreamer like myself to benefit from these changes and ideas enough to actually hope for a sustainable income and future doing things that interest me with the people whom i interact with and share my daily lives and feelings with, my thoughts knowledge opinions and talents with, the same people whom share their lives and thoughts and creations with me. There's no real reason to hold back the future. The real question is "how can you justify holding yourself back from the opportunity to be interested again, and to get paid for it?"
