8 PLATFORMS NEED TO WORK WITH THEIR USERS—NOT AGAINST THEM

by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Andrew Hall

As we write, thousands of online communities created for a wide variety of purposes—everything from providing crypto financial services to crowdsourcing art collecting—are building new democracies and rapidly evolving systems for discussion, debate, voting, and representation. This movement, often known as Web3, has created an explosion of interest in giving ownership and decision-making power to community participants rather than to a small number of business executives.

This phenomenon highlights a critical challenge for traditional platforms like Amazon, Meta, Google’s play store, and Apple’s app store, gaming platforms like Roblox or ...

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