LettersWill Web3’s promise of decentralisation benefit musicians?
- Readers discuss the sustainability of decentralised autonomous organisations, and why Hong Kong should regulate pop-up advertisements online
An emerging feature of Web3 is the decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), which blockchain-based software platform Ethereum defines as “a collectively-owned, blockchain-governed organisation working towards a shared mission”. For example, a Web3 crowdfunding platform, Decentralised Pictures, runs by voting from a community of subscribers who decide which pitch should be funded.
This is a seemingly ideal business model, but is this sustainable? Last year, one DAO bid for a copy of the US Constitution, having raised over US$40 million in the ether cryptocurrency within a week of launching, but lost to a Wall Street tycoon. Another DAO raised funds to buy an NBA team.
However, history is a strong argument for centralisation, which allows for greater efficiency, low execution cost and economies of scale. Decentralisation enables greater creative freedom, but could also lead to a decline in the quality of artistic production or an increase in sexually explicit or violent content.
Moreover, can decentralisation really benefit individual artists? Decisions on day-to-day activities of DAOs still involve a few core members, often those who hold more cryptocurrency tokens. And while blockchain technology is supposed to increase security, in 2016, a hacker exploited a weakness in the code of an organisation called The DAO to siphon off one-third of the funds.
Audius, which describes itself as a Web3 streaming platform, seeks to remove middlemen, allowing artists to upload their own music and control how they make money from it. However, it is not clear that musicians can make more money on this platform than Spotify.