I keep coming to a simple feeling that I have not been able to get rid of. When people talk about Web3 they often act like data on the blockchain is automatically true. They think that just because something is transparent we do not need to think about what it means. But the more I look at how people use Web3 the more I think that idea is not complete.
I have seen cycles in crypto and each time I think I understand what is going on something new comes up. Every new system rolls in saying it will make things clear.......Eventually we find out that people are doing things because they get rewards not because they really want to. That is why PIXEL got me. It does not say it is perfect. It makes me think about a hard question. Who really decides what things mean when everyone can see the data.
My first big realization was that just because we can see something it does not mean it is true. Just because something is recorded on the blockchain it does not mean it is really happening. It only means it is following the rules of the system. Whether it is real or just people doing things to get rewards is a different question. PIXEL makes me think about this problem more.
Another thing that bothers me is that we often think something is healthy just because it is active............. 👀 I have seen setups where the numbers pop. When I look closer I see that people are just farming the system. 🌾 It makes me wonder if we are really seeing if something is working or just seeing people reacting to incentives. When I look at PIXEL I do not see an answer I see a system that makes it harder to ignore this problem.
There is also something about how we look at data. Two people can look at the same information and come up with different ideas about what it means. One person sees growth another person sees something bad and both can be right depending on what they focus on. That is not a problem with the data it is a reminder that people always interpret things in their own way. PIXEL does not solve this problem it shows us that it is there.
The part that really makes things complicated is the rewards...... Web3 systems do not just record what people do they also encourage people to do things. So I often ask myself if what I see is just people doing what they are supposed to do. The difference is small. It changes everything about how we trust things.
What I like about PIXEL and I mean that in the least hype way possible 📉 is that it does not let me settle on an answer. It keeps making me think about the question. If we can see the data but people are doing things to get rewards what are we really trusting.
I also think about how big something is. Small systems can seem simple......... That is just because they are not big enough yet. When more people join the rewards start to control what people do. I do not know where PIXEL is on this path. I think that is why it is interesting not because it is good or bad.
At this point I am not trying to say if something is good or bad. I am just noticing a pattern in my thoughts. The more we can see what is going on the more important it is to think about what it means...... The more we think about what it means the less comfortable it is to say something is simply true or false.
Maybe the real change is not about making sure the data is correct. Maybe it is about accepting that in Web3 what is true is a mix of the code the rewards and what people think. And if that is the case then projects like PIXEL are not about giving us answers they are about making us ask better questions.
I am still not sure what this means. But I am more sure now that just thinking data on the blockchain is always true just does not cut it anymore. 🤔
