NFTs: Key Infrastructure for Digital Inclusion

When people dialed in with 56k modems to connect to AOL, the Internet was a very different, more open place where anyone in the world could share information, communicate and transact. Advertising models and the attention economy hadn’t been built yet, and people’s journeys over the Internet were limited only by what they could search, discover, and use. Things were good and easier too! People were happy.

How Web2 Crippled Digital Inclusion

Then social media was born and the internet shifted to attention-based business models that focused on attention harnessing, guiding people through models that depended on engagement. We entered the era of “Web2” with excitement and glee. Monetizing content opened up the potential for revenue streams that could be huge, depending on the creator’s ability to take advantage of these new tools and the scale they brought to their audience.

However, it wasn’t long before the flaws underlying this new model began to tear society apart, pigeonholing conversations and creating communities that felt real, but which were really based on your invisible, algorithmic internet Sherpas. These guides gently led the public to places where their attention could be tracked, harnessed, and monetized. This model reaped huge financial returns and made shareholder value the primary driver behind the designs of these systems.

Under this regime, internet adventurers became “users” whose valuable data could be mined, shared and monetized without even realizing what was happening. Personal privacy was put on the altar of sacrifice without those “users” choosing to do so with informed consent and knowledge of the consequences.

Advertisements became better, more targeted and more relevant; some people liked that, and platforms like facebook For real liked that. Seemingly overnight, our devices started listening to our conversations and feeding us content based on what would create the most shareholder value. It worked! Business was going well and people were spending money (and attention) on platforms that persuaded them to create content and provide extremely valuable data for free.

NFTs and the Path to User Empowerment

Today it is clear that this model has led us astray. Outrage and narcissism have become the tent poles of this new economy, and society suffers every day. Many have realized where they have been drawn, but have found no exits or escapes from this broken model.

The next generation of the Internet is being built around a set of values ​​to correct these errors. Users are becoming “members” and content creators are quickly abandoning broken Web2 platforms in favor of solutions that remove the middleman and connect people directly to the information they want to see – rather than the information the big companies want them to see. NFTs, while relatively new to the scene, enable this connection in previously unimaginable ways.

NFTs are basically membership cards that can track you around the web and unlock specific information. They have become known for their application to art, but this technology is so much more than images of monkeys.

Take the recent controversy surrounding de-platforming and the questions of whether the major technology platforms like Twitter and Facebook have a responsibility to provide their users with information that conforms to an ever-changing set of values, morals, norms, etc. As NFT adoption continues to take root , we will begin to see a digital world where people who choose to see specific content can access it and those who want to avoid certain things can do so. This model shifts responsibility from centralized organizations that can benefit financially from our outrage to individuals who are able to make their own choices.

A more inclusive digital world

In this world, certain groups are not excluded from information based on what algorithms think they want to see or should see. Anyone can access whatever content they choose, with no outside influence from shareholder-driven entities that can take advantage of the declining mental health of their user base.

Inclusion on the internet cannot be achieved by forcing everyone to see everything. There is just too much information. True digital inclusion will be achieved by empowering society to make informed decisions for itself — allowing people to select themselves into groups based on informed consent. This is a drastic shift from the current model and means that centralized entities will lose control of their massive user base as people switch from users to members. Instead of relying on curated content from groups with ulterior motives, people can actively seek out the information they want to find.

This does not mean that people will automatically find ‘correct’ or even ‘good’ information, but it does mean that they have control over how they construct meaning from reality – a stark contrast to the current state of affairs.

Digital inclusion is not achieved by forcing everyone through the same funnel of beliefs chosen based on what will outrage them or give them a false sense of belonging. True inclusion happens when everyone is free to make their own choices to find their version of reality.

We feel this disconnect every day in the contrast between what we see online and what we experience in real life. The truth is that most people want the same things: peace, security and community. But if you only interacted with society via the Internet, you might come to a different conclusion. This inequality is created algorithmically and the shift from old internet models to new ones will play an important role in closing that gap. NFTs will be remembered for years to come as the most important piece of infrastructure on this journey because of the way they return control and power to the people.

Julien Genestoux is founder & CEO of Unlock protocol