Oddbean

For those of you that have read De Soto’s “The Mystery of Capital” Today I found myself thinking about capital creation with content It struck me how important Nostr is as a new technology, playing field, map, to adventure into De Soto shows so well how private property rights are crucial to capital creation He highlights the need for defined, accessible, and policed private property jurisdictions His native Peru vs the US real estate markets are his comparison tools, which I really like Essentially ex-communist and developing nations struggle to create capital due to poor management of private property rights What if the same could be applied to traditional content platforms? I think it can… Imagine building a shopping mall in a country that changes government, alters regulations, & steals your property Capital erosion The same can be applied to building a YT channel, IG account, or X following. You can get banned at any time for “abusing community guidelines” Capital erosion Point being, through the lens of De Soto, you need private property rights to be upheld to truly create, multiply, & preserve capital Nostr is therefore the corner stone of a genuine digital capital creation strategy with content What do you think?

Great point and reference. In this specific case there is the bootstrapping challenge you don't see in physical jurisdictions. It is actually easier to get your business going in good jurisdictions.

When you say private property rights, how does this differ from Intellectual Property? I am not against capitalism. But when I read about Against IP monopoly, my eyes have opened to a different perspective that I didn't see before. However, I am open to learn. ☺️

Nobody owns an idea. The only way to own an idea is maintain exclusive access to it (to keep it a secret). Nostr allows users to own their online identity by maintaining exclusive access to their private key (nsec). The content created can be copied, but nobody can take away your secret & post as you. Nostr enables users to own their online identity but not their content. Their content sits on relays & web servers & is easily copied. I believe Jake is suggesting that there's a form of social capital created which resides with the identity. This social capital is built from content & interactions online. I'm not entirely sure that you could call it property though. I can't sell my identity since I can't transfer it (yet). I can share my identity secret with someone else but they can't be sure I won't sell the secret to someone else. It's definitely interesting to think about.

I am thinking through the idea that The nsec (or very well put “secret” as you say) is property itself. It’s a key to the audience, or reach, or attention, that has been built over time, by the owner. You own it until you give it away, sell it, or are hacked & have it stolen. But critically it’s not possible to debase it ok the back-end (you can’t be cancelled) I believe there will be a flourishing market for nsec re-sales in the futur, as ofc the need to communicate with certain engaged sub-groups of people will exist Critically, unlike when buying an IG account etc, the new owner wil know that they can not have it taken away. Similar to an email address, but given how the Nostr app ecosystem is developing, 10x more valuable (eg you can’t send btc via email) Very happy to be proven wrong. But really enjoying where this thought process is taking me

To @Brisket point re “social capital” I believe capital comes in many forms, the 3 major areas being - financial - skill - relationship (social) Investing into a Nostr account with your time, energy, and money, has the potential to have an roi in all 3 - financial - you can sell products and services to an audience that you build - skill - by focusing your attention on Nostr it’s inevitable that you develop a new skill set (& given we’re so early it’ll be relatively rare globally) - relationship - given one is able to interact in public digitally and in a trusted manner, as you only have access to the nsec, as discuss, there’s huge scope to build fruitful friendships (think “play long-term games with long-term people) As always lots to think through! But from a capital creation perspective, we’re only just scratching the surface of what it means to own your identity, data and audience online