Why The Community Is Not the Product
The author, a veteran crypto builder, shares insights from failed experiments within tokenized communities, arguing that extrinsic incentives ultimately destroy authentic community dynamics by crowding out intrinsic motivation. The author concludes that tokens and communities should exist at opposite ends of an ecosystem, with tokens serving as powerful tools for incentivizing contributions to decentralized organizations but not for “rewarding communities.” Token incentives face specific challenges like the impossibility of maintaining non-predictable, non-exclusive, and culturally neutral rewards. The better approach is to defend against incentive seekers rather than scaling through token-based growth mechanisms.