Through the Lens Protocol, understand the three decisive characteristics of Web3 social

Original Title: 《Web3 Social Media Under the Lens》

Author: LiJin, Co-founder of Variant

Translation: Yvonne, MarsBit

Ten years ago, Linkin Park was the biggest band in the world, or at least the most popular music group on Facebook, with 56 million fans and 58 million likes. On Facebook, the band not only announced music releases and concert dates but also released a video game in 2013.

Then, Facebook changed its algorithm, as it often does, maximizing metrics that brought in higher revenue for itself. Guitarist Mike Shinoda stated that Facebook told the band, "Every time you want to post and reach 100% of your fans, you need to spend on ads," and free posts would only be seen by a small portion of the band's fans.

The algorithm created a barrier between artists and audiences.

However, Facebook and other Web2 social media platforms have significantly declined due to algorithm adjustments and extractive monetization strategies. The emergence of Web3 means that value no longer needs to primarily belong to social media intermediaries, whose main purpose is to facilitate connections. With Web3 social networks, more value flows to users and those content contributors who initially make the network valuable.

What is Web3 Social?

Last December, as I looked ahead to 2023, I predicted that decentralized social networks would be the "next big thing." These platforms can operate in various ways, but they share some common characteristics, including resistance to censorship and user control over data.

Web3 social implicitly leverages blockchain technology and tokenization, distinguishing itself from federated models and other forms of decentralization. The Web2 social business model almost requires the collection of user data to kickstart advertising and subscription revenue, while Web3 social can minimize or even completely eliminate platform interference. In Web3 social, the goal is to connect users and attract developers, thereby avoiding impacts on both as much as possible.

In February of this year, I had the privilege of co-hosting a Twitter Spaces event with Stani Kulechov, the founder of the Web3 social graph Lens Protocol, and Lens users, discussing how they evolved from traditional social networks.

For those unfamiliar with the protocol, Lens describes itself as "a user-owned, open social graph that any application can plug into." In practice, this means you don't create a profile; instead, you create an NFT. Similarly, all your follower relationships and content are represented as NFTs. The entire social graph is on-chain, including the act of unfollowing someone by burning an NFT.

Third-party developers have built dozens of applications on top of Lens Protocol, including the social media app Lenster, the video-sharing platform Lenstube, and Phaver (a management app that combines elements of Yelp, Pinterest, and Amazon listings).

Three Characteristics of Web3 Social

The participants in the discussion clarified three decisive characteristics of Web3 social from the creators' perspective.

First, it is platformless. Without a platform, no third party owns the content you create. Instead, you create it, and you own it. By extension, Web3 social networks also have censorship resistance, meaning social relationships cannot be deleted or restricted by the platform.

Second, Web3 social data is portable. As Shinoda discovered, Linkin Park did not own its relationship with users; Facebook did. However, Web3 has an advantage: it uses wallets, allowing for direct relationships between users and creators, so you don't have to constantly rebuild your fan base; even if an individual social protocol shuts down, the wallet still exists.

The end result is that neither followers nor creators are bound to any one platform. Shane Mac, CEO of XMTP Labs, stated that he was inspired to co-found the company, which develops a protocol for Web3 messaging to avoid the situation Linkin Park faced again. He said, "Every time you build an audience on Web2, you just keep building new audiences, and then you lose touch with those audiences over and over again." "I think the model here has fundamentally changed; what you're saying now is that if you have to use an application to access your conversations, your network, or your relationships, then you don't actually own those audiences."

Third, because it is Web3, it is composable. Just as DeFi benefits from money Legos, Web3 social protocols gain value and utility through applications built on decentralized social primitives. Video creator Chris Comrie remarked, "It reminds me of when the kids at Stanford were building apps on Facebook." However, over time, Web2 platforms typically evolve from collaborating with builders to competing with them (as Chris Dixon wrote in 2018), while Web3 networks are more conducive to composability because they have always been optimized for collaboration. (See Jesse's 2019 article "Past, Present, Future: From Cooperatives to Crypto Networks.")

The result is better services for creators and their fans.

These composable features create new monetization pathways.

The first we already know: NFT collections. For example, Shinoda launched a mixed tape NFT for his Ziggurats project on Tezos in 2021. For instance, NFTs allow musicians to refuse the recording and touring processes that aim to drain their funds. By selling directly to fans and readjusting royalties, artists can take a larger cut from their revenue streams.

Lens goes a step further by turning every post into a collectible item. Followers who decide to follow/collect pay fees in the same way fans do on Patreon, minus a platform fee of 5-12% and transaction processing fees (in cryptocurrency, not credit cards).

Moreover, creators are not the only ones who can earn money—curators can too. When a reposted post is collected by others, you can earn some revenue alongside the artist. This is somewhat similar to affiliate links, where a website fills its pages with backlinks to Amazon and other retailers—when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase, the website earns a small commission from the sale.

Those using the protocol can build their own enhanced monetization tools. For example, Amplicata helps users earn rewards through reposting, connecting them with advertisers. This composability also means that earnings do not have to be confined to any one application. Content originating from a Lens application can be used on other platforms, enabling cross-application revenue sharing.

The ultimate result of Web3 social is broader dissemination, as creators can now use tools to monetize from smaller fan bases.

MarloWe Brett, NFT lead at Phaver, stated, "(Record labels) have a specific standard or a specific person they push for development, and all other artists who may not meet that specific standard get marginalized." He mentioned a recent conversation he had with a musician using Lens. "I think artists are discovering, at least from what they say, that they have the ability to be completely authentic and fully themselves."

In other words, creators can reach more niche audiences because they do not have to go through intermediaries to attract larger, more homogenized audiences.

This is a natural extension of the "100 True Fans" thesis I proposed in 2020, when I wrote, "The global adoption of social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the mainstreaming of the influencer model, and the rise of new creator tools have changed the threshold for success. I believe creators only need to accumulate 100 true fans, rather than 1,000, each paying them $1,000 a year instead of $100. Today, creators can effectively earn more from fewer fans."

While this theory still applies to Web2 platforms, it fits even better with Lens, which optimizes user interaction with creators rather than platform profitability.

Challenges Remain

While many users are excited about the opportunities Web3 social presents, Lens must address several pressing challenges to survive and thrive.

The first is the issue that plagues many decentralized networks: "Wen token?" Rumors of an airdrop have prompted some to use the protocol in ways that do not add value, but actually diminish the network's appeal to other users. Today, lens-based applications are rife with spam and bot activity, as well as low-quality participation from airdroppers. Given the path dependency of social networks, this "network pollution" poses risks to Lens's continued growth and vitality.

Second, while I have discussed some drawbacks of existing social platforms, they have something that Web3 platforms do not: a massive user base. To surpass traditional networks, Web3 social must capture unique directions that are impossible to achieve on Web2 platforms. Whether through NFTs or other means, creator monetization is an appealing value proposition, but Web3 social also needs to offer differentiated experiences to ordinary users (not just creators). This may mean adopting a financial or asset-first approach, allowing users to profit from their activities on the network.