Signaling on the Internet

An NFT may not be worth much as a jpeg, but it is worth quite a bit more as social capital, as a demarcation of tribal identity, a wink that rewards the viewer for decoding its meaning—not even for anything it says, necessarily, but for signaling that the viewer is “in the know,” operating in the same cultural code.

I think it’s almost all social. For most fans it's really about the flex: “I was the first person to be a fan” or “I’m the biggest fan”, and that can be shown in a bunch of different ways. Maybe you get a new badge or achievement when you donate more than $500 to that person. That’s a real flex. They’re clearly a super fan. The social side of it ex... See more

Marketplaces win if they can more cheaply attract demand/supply then their competitors and are then able to extract the most value possible from the network without increasing churn. Upwork did this via the press. Fiverr did it via viral growth loops. Braintrust does it with crypto.