Going from Web 2 to Web 3 – “Your Take Rate is My Opportunity”

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Imagine you’re a savvy cat living in a neighborhood full of other felines. You’ve got a favorite corner store where you buy your daily dose of catnip. But every time you buy a pinch of the good stuff, the store takes a huge cut of your kitty coins. You start to notice that this happens with everything: cat treats, toys, even your favorite scratch posts! This “take rate” is the percentage that the store takes from every sale before you get what you want.

Now, what if a clever kitty came along and said, “Hey, what if we cut out the middle cat? Instead of that store taking a big slice, we could share more of the coins directly with the cats who made the treats and toys?” That’s the shift happening as we move from Web 2 to Web 3. It’s all about reducing the take rate and giving more value directly to creators and users.

Your Take Rate is My Opportunity: How Amazon Changed the Game

Let’s talk about Jeff Bezos for a second. He once said, “Your margin is my opportunity,” meaning Amazon saw an opportunity to undercut competitors by lowering prices. By giving customers a better deal, Amazon took over the commerce world. But it’s not just Amazon. The internet as a whole has been playing this game since the ‘90s.

Craigslist did this by offering free classifieds, Google and Facebook did it by giving users free access to media, and platforms like TripAdvisor and Airbnb disrupted the travel industry by reducing costs. They all found ways to cut out the middleman and give more value back to users. It’s like if your local corner store suddenly said, “You know what? We’re going to stop taking so many kitty coins. You get more catnip for less!”

Enter Web 3: The New Cat in Town

Now, we’re entering the Web 3 era, and it’s doing the same thing—just on a much larger scale. The higher the take rate on Web 2 platforms, the more vulnerable they are to Web 3’s new way of doing things. Let’s take the gaming industry as an example.

Video games bring in around $120 billion every year, with much of that coming from virtual goods (like in-game costumes or power-ups). But most of these games have a 100% take rate, meaning the game developers keep all of the money. You’re like a cat paying for virtual fish in a game, but you never get to sell any of those fish or keep their value. The developers hold all the power (and the fish!).

In Web 3 games players can earn real value, and instead of all the coins going to the developers, they go back to the players. It’s like being able to catch your own fish in the game and then sell them to other cats! This peer-to-peer economy is a big deal because it gives players more control and ownership over the game’s economy, unlike traditional games where the developers keep everything.

Musicians: Taking Back the Music Industry

Let’s talk music.

Today, there are over 8 million musicians on streaming services like Spotify, but less than 0.2% of them make over $50,000 per year.

Why? Because the streaming services and music labels take the lion’s share (or should we say, the tiger’s share?) of the revenue.

But in Web 3, NFTs are changing the tune. Musicians can now sell their music directly to fans, cutting out the layers of middlemen. And guess what? They get to keep over 90% of the sales! This means that with just a thousand loyal fans, a musician could support themselves. It’s like a cat band playing in your living room, keeping almost all the tips that fans drop in their kitty jar.

Social Media Platforms: From 100% Take to Fair Play

Now let’s look at social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. They have a 100% take rate on the content you create. You, as the cat influencer, post all your best cat memes, but the platforms don’t share any of the revenue from the ads or sponsorships they get from your posts. That’s been great for them, but not so great for you.

Web 3 is changing that too. Platforms like Rally, Mirror, and BitClout are reducing the take rate to below 10%. Most of the value goes back to the creators (that’s you!). It’s like being able to share your cat videos and getting paid directly by your fans, instead of the platform keeping all the kitty treats.

Web 3: More Treats for Everyone

Here’s the bottom line: Web 2 platforms have depended entirely on creators for content, but they’ve been giving only a tiny portion of the rewards back. This is not sustainable. Just like when a greedy cat tries to hoard all the treats, eventually the other cats catch on and find a better way to share the bounty.

With Web 3, the opportunity is huge. By reducing the take rate, we’re giving more value back to the people (or cats) who create and use these platforms. That’s the real power of Web 3.

As we say in the crypto world: Your take rate is my opportunity.

So, are you ready to take back your catnip?

Original Article by https://x.com/cdixon on https://cdixon.org/