Web3 Native Jargon is Attacked: “NFT” and “Blockchain” Related Terms Should Not Be Demonised!
And why Reddit’s success is ambiguous if you look carefully
Times and times again, I am seeing quite a bunch of folks from the Web3 community that are following a particular narrative that intrigued me.
The exact narrative that is being exalted is along these lines:
If we want to have mass adoption of the blockchain technology and NFTs applications, we need to stop using such tech jargon and stop scaring people away because of it.
But why is that happening?
The belief is that by treating the blockchain-tech and in extend the potential use-cases of NFTs like a “black box” is bettering the chances of having these technologies adopted in mass-scale.
The idea is to build on top of these technologies without referring to those when marketing takes place for Web3 projects.
What matters more and needs to be promoted is the solutions that are being created with these technologies and not the tech per se.
That is the general sentiment behind the followers of this narrative.
To be frank, I understand why they are saying this and it holds some value.
Hence, I am sceptical on abandoning completely mentioning the tech-stack that makes up the products.
Let’s say you are a user of a Web3 product.
Maybe at the same time you are a retail investor of the company that made this product, which you love so much.
You wouldn’t want to know what powers this product on the backend?
I am sure you would, otherwise why would you pay for it?
Unless you want to stay in the shadows!
The Ancients and the Modern Tech World… Align, Somehow!
Ancient Greeks had a knack for formulating technical words that were giving away the fundamental meaning of what they intended to describe.
I see the Web3 dictionary the same way:
- Non-Fungible Tokens
- Blockchain
- Miner-Extractable Value
- Off-Chain
- On-Chain
- and so on…
Each one of these terms convey a message and has as a goal to educate.
Even if that means education comes around implicitly this way.
Distributing this knowledge to those who want to learn is of much bigger value, and no project should neglect this part on their business plan.
There are tremendous benefits having knowledgeable users and customers, who can then have their say on how products can be shaped.
Under certain circumstances and project development frameworks this leads to value co-creation.
An untapped growth hack that has not been fully explored in Web3.
Which particular group(s) of people are adopters of the “no tech-jargon” movement?
It’s anecdotal and based on my personal experience and observations.
Hold on tight, there is substance here.
The “gang” of people who I see are the marketing Web3 community.
They openly support the elimination of the overt expression of blockchain-native terminology in their promotion campaigns.
The idea is that crypto-native jargon scares people away and hinders them from feeling “comfortable” to join crypto-communities and purchase Web3-related products e.g NFTs, Community-Access Tokens, LP Tokens etc.
If you are not tech-savvy and a Web3 aficionado it gets easily convoluting, and internet communities lack patience.
They show disinterest in an instant.
Boom! You’ve lost them madames et monsieurs.
The message the Web3 marketing community is trying to get across is sensible and understandable.
I am not excluding its validity 100%.
Though, I think it diverges 80% away from the Web3 ethos of transparency and true ownership.
I leave the 20% for debate.
Reddit, Oh Reddit, You Become the Case-Study of “Success”
It all started back in July of 2022.
At that time, the social media firm Reddit launched Collectible Avatars, which are limited-edition digital collectibles… or known as NFTs.
These digital collectibles could be used by Reddit’s users as their Reddit Avatars, a mini-sign of prestige.
Their target audience was claimed to be mainstream non-crypto natives.
What made the whole experience different was the frictionless nature of the purchasing process from start to finish:
- The onboarding process was fairly easy
- The NFTs could be bought with a credit card
- No crypto related set-up was needed at any stage
- Layer 2 blockchain Polygon is where these Avatars “live”
The Web3 evangelists have been heralding Reddit’s huge success.
The fair pricing, easy hopping-on process and understanding of their target personas, led to Reddit breaking the bank according to general consensus within the Web3 community.
Not for myself, though…
Reddit’s success that is not so successful
Reddit succeeded in one thing very well.
This thing was attracting lots of attention within its community.
It also had Web3 people having their eyes on them.
A major growth hack has been unlocked due to their NFTs…
Okay, sorry, in this case we should follow the guidelines and call them as Reddit officially calls them: “Collectible Avatars”.
Unfortunately, a big proportion of the non-web3 natives when they hear the term “NFT”, they associate it with a negative sentiment.
Some call NFTs a “scam”, and others (especially gamers) purely hate them.
The ideological battle around terminology is a hot-topic of discussion.
In this case, Reddit ditched completely any of the negative or confusing terminologies that was making their community feeling appalled to the sound of these terms.
More than 5 million crypto wallets have opened on Reddit’s platform. Here are some of the latest numbers taken from my favourite web3 analytics tool, Dune:
The number of them being active is what matters and Ouriel from ZenGo explained it very well back in October 2022, when the news headlines were all about Reddit’s success.
Please, give a read of his Twitter thread by clicking below, as I found it very illuminating.
Being himself a CEO of a web3 wallet company gives another perspective, driving parallels with OpenSea’s wallets and Reddit’s Vault wallets here.
Ouriel mentioned, lastly, that the minted free Collectible Avatars are not exportable from Reddit’s Vault wallet!
How do you feel about that? Interesting, right?
But, it’s time to finish and we’ll do that with dev John Rigler, who I respect wholeheartedly as a tech person and forward-thinker.
The Terms and Conditions Show Reddit’s Fragility
So, John said very well in one of his comments on Linkedin:
The Terms and Conditions imply that you agree to use their software/service on their terms and meet their conditions.
If you don’t follow their rules then it is understood that something negative could happen.
In this case: they take away your NFT.
From my research that is what can happen very easily.
You can read the image below:
And John continued by saying, quote:
Next:
“they auto-create a wallet for you if you get an NFT”
Where, on your computer? Of course not.
This is done on your account (probably on their website), which they can take away.
The problem emphasised is somewhat centralisation, which can make you lose access to your Collectibles.
Who wants to lose everything due to arbitrary community and site-wide Reddit rules?
John finishes with, quote:
There is a huge learning curve at the beginning of the Web 3/ Internet-of-Value / NFT experience and everyone is avoiding it.
These projects all resolve back to Web 2 and then people just have a fancy jpg image and still don’t get it.
And, that’s where the problem lies folks.
The adulteration of the Web3 infrastructure and ethos with the Web2 business mentality distorts the reality.
And the reality is that Reddit’s “Collectible Avatars”, as well as Nike’s RTFKT, among others, are setting the stage for a Web3 world that is rigged from within.
The Web3 values of decentralisation and true data/asset ownership is constantly diluted… and that is because of convenience and avoidance of getting down the rabbit hole.
The learning curve, indeed, is steep.
The benefits, on the other hand, are phenomenal when you’re practically educated enough to use a wallet like Metamask or Exodus and have some general understanding how to safely store crypto.
Don’t let convenience be the detriment of Web3’s future.
