Is Web3 culture similar to Amway culture? - by Noah Smith
I’ve generally been more bullish on web3 than on Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s core narrative of replacing fiat money is obviously false, and it has big energy issues as well; web3, in contrast, is just blockchain technology as a whole, so it seems reasonably possible that people will find something useful to do with it. But I do see some blind alleys that I think web3 could potentially go down. One of these is ubiquitous micropayments. Marc Andreessen recently suggested this as a big appeal of web3, but I think the hassle cost of this will be large.
A second possible blind alley is multi-level marketing. A recent a16z report noted that “Web3 aligns network participants to work together toward a common goal—the growth of the network”. That kind of incentive could be great for growth, but also lends itself to the monetization of network growth — which is exactly what MLM is all about.
When I pointed this out on Twitter, Lars Doucet ( @larsiusprime) told me that he saw some similarities between web3 culture and the culture of Amway — probably the most famous American MLM company — back in the 1990s. So I asked him to write a post explaining those similarities. Lars is no stranger to guest posts; he wrote a long and very excellent series of posts on Georgism for Scott Alexander’s blog. You can read more of Lars's works at his Substack, at gameofrent.com, and at fortressofdoors.com.
