Pat McAfee has made a name for himself. He signed a huge contract with ESPN to host his show on the network. Previously, he was a YouTube star. Personally, I had no knowledge of the guy since sports talk shows are foreign to me these days.
Obviously that was not the case for many as he signed a 5 year, $85 million contract. There are a lot of people who tune in to hear what he has to say. Now he is making headlines with the news that he is paying Aaron Rodgers to appear on his show.
The sports personality is media savvy. He is taking a simplistic approach:
Incentives. Where have we heard about them before?
Incentivize Growth
One thing McAfee latched onto is the idea of incentivizing people to help him grow. While he is now an employee, his brand is something he is paying attention to. I do not know all the details of his contract with ESPN in terms of what they own versus him.
Whatever it is, there will come a point in time when the contract ends. The goal for McAfee is to have his brand highly visible. This means making his efforts very appealing to either ESPN or another suitor down the road.
Here is where incentives enter. This guy appears to be playing the long game. He is not worried about a few dollars (actually many) in the short-term. Instead, he knows there will be something of at least equal size down the road if he can keep things growing.
Quite frankly, this is a web3 concept, or should be. Nobody should do anything for free. There either should be a direct payment, a chance at stake, or both.
This is not possible in the Web 2.0 world however.
McAfee is taking money out of his pocket. We could view this as making an investment in himself (or his brand). It will likely pay off for him.
That said, we need to start looking at other models. Incentivization through tokenization is a much better solution. It also means that if we want expansion, more is required.
Here is one of the areas where Bitcoin Maxis go off the rails. Unless their are continued incentives, people are going to lose interest. In other words, as more platforms grow, we will see a time when the masses start to understand this concept. People will effectively be paying for the network effect.
To some degree Hive already does this.
More
The lesson from McAfee is it takes more to get more.
Unfortunately, this is the opposite of the cryptocurrency world. For some reason, there is an abundance of thinking that less is more. They operate on the scarcity principle, always looking to limit things.
It is probably the main reason why things have failed throughout the cryptocurrency world.
Point blank: if you want people to do something, pay them. .
What would some of the applications on Hive look like if every activity was rewarded in some way? By this I mean that one takes some action, there is direct payment. This does not have to be in the form of cryptocurrency. Remember, token can take on many meanings. We also have many levels to a token economy.
This is a concept that could be constructed within the confines of a much larger ecosystem. It ends up being a supplement to the tradeable token. Here we, once again, see the main token operating as value capture.
Naturally, this is not a concept you hear about being discussed much on crypto-Twitter.
Growth costs money. McAfree understands this very well. I have no idea how he plans to turn this actions into more flowing into his pocket. Perhaps there are other ways he is allowed to monetize. Nevertheless, the guy is not doing this simply because he wants to give Aaron Rodgers or Nick Saban more cash.
He is banking on some type of return.
Token As The Value Builder
We discuss the idea of tokens being able to capture value. This certainly allows us to enter areas where we could not forge before in terms of monetization.
What we do not see is the concept of tokens as value builders. There is very little discussed about how a token can be used to generate the value on a platform, which is captured by the main token.
Instead, we have ideas such as burns, marketing to web2, and other tired ideas. On this end, quite simply, we do not seem to have a lot of innovation.
You want people to show up, pay them. It is not that complicated.
Of course, to be successful, some creativity is required. This should be part of a larger plan. It also should be a constant throughout the platform. Here is where most project falls short.
We talk a lot about Web3 yet keep operating like always. The tendency is to approach things with a scarcity mindset. Most do not believe the amount of value that can be built and what it is worth on the open market. Hence, they keep pushing the same ideas, hoping price go up.
McAfee understands the concept. He is, however, operating in the traditional world whereby it is fairly straightforward. The options are limited in terms of how he incentivized people.
Imagine what we could do if he were to enter Web3. Between non-tradeable tokens, NFTs, and other digital assets. he could really start the process of massive transformation.
Fortunately for us, he is stuck in that world. With money he is being paid, few of us will feel sorry for the guy. That said, for the rest of us, this is an opportunity. Here we see the chance to radical alter how people operate.
Incentivization is a topic that doesn't get a ton of attention throughout cryptocurrency. It is important considering this article only shows up on the blockchain due to the incentivizes paid to node operators to keep the software running. They are not doing it for free.
It is a principle that needs to spread for success.
We simply must take incentivization to another level. This has to start with the applications.