Come for the Network, Pay for the Tool

A riff on Chris Dixon, Come for the tool, stay for the network
The uneasy Web 2.0 truce between social networks, legacy media, and brands is falling apart. Once it was held together by ad tech. But advertising spends keep going up, brand content is at peak saturation, and audiences are slowly but surely evacuating the big social media companies. Can the three forces — social media, content, and commerce — find a new way relate to each other?

Here enters the question of community.

As high quality content and effective brand strategy move down the long tail, “community” has become an important concept for every post-Web 2.0 player. Crypto token holders, influencer fanbases, DTC brand customers, creator audiences, and new social networks are all often referred to as communities, and each has a stake in developing community for itself.
One of Web 2.0’s most crucial lessons is that extractive business models cannot be masked by marketing for very long. This is doubly true when the community itself is part of what people are paying for.
Start erasing the line between operators, customers, and community members, and squint; you begin to make out the shape of a group of people who can build for themselves and determine their own path of development. id:: 63b70ac9-780a-476e-b1ac-ef2e6706044d