Content
@
https://farcaster.xyz/~/channel/gift-economics
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Welcome to /gift-economics! Excited to get our discussions started off on the right foot. The subtitle of Ted Gioia's excellent essay, Why I Take Gifts Seriously, poses a challenging and important question: "The digital economy is built on the unpaid labor of the gifted. What can we do to protect them?" Gioia has an interesting take: "We have now entered into the crux of the dilemma facing gifted people in our cultural ecosystem, one that has grown into a huge crisis in the digital age. All creative people grasp, if only subconsciously, that their gifts were meant for giving. Even more to the point, the value of their gift increases (for both giver and receiver) through that open-hearted act of exchange." [...] "But the real foundation of the Internet is businesses that pretend to be gift exchanges." [...] "These businesses deliberately blur the boundaries between gift exchange and economic transactions. They have... constructed their platforms to lure the gifted into a faux gift exchange communities—built entirely on creative people who get paid as little as possible for their contributions." "You might even say that the digital economy creates billionaires out of the unpaid labor of the gifted—who freely give their gifts every day." [...] "No, you’re not forced to participate in the digital age, but good luck trying to find another way to survive as a gifted or creative person." The essay is worth reading in full (and will likely be quoted in the /gift-economics channel frequently), but these quotes point to a thorny problem that rarely gets enough airtime: businesses that extract gift value and labor from creative people by masquerading as gift communities. What can be done to protect the gifted from this kind of structural extraction? https://www.honest-broker.com/p/why-i-take-gifts-seriously
2 replies
3 recasts
14 reactions
BrightFutureGuy 🎩↑
@bfg
as always, Danica, fascinating kick-off 👏 Love this angle, it's worth pondering about ... "You might even say that the digital economy creates billionaires out of the unpaid labor of the gifted—who freely give their gifts every day." [...] Def not everyone gifted is giving their labor for free, certainly not those folks building digital economy tools and networks. But more looking forward to reading more on these topics 🤩
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Thanks for the appreciative words. There's plenty in Ted Gioia's article that's worth pondering. We'll likely be quoting it frequently in this channel, because it's densely packed with insights that take awhile to sink in. You're right that not everyone is doing gift labor, but that's part of the point Gioia's article is making: we need to examine the power dynamics in order to understand what's happening beneath the surface with the gift labor. Whose time, attention, and labor are being appropriated and poorly paid? Who or what is extracting the value they create? Et cetera.
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
BrightFutureGuy 🎩↑
@bfg
Which is very easily generalizable examination of any economic system - there’s always someone winning more for some period of time until system (aka people) readjusts But I like the angle of socials and will read the whole thing 🤓 thanks for it 🙏
1 reply
0 recast
2 reactions
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Happy reading. We'd be glad to discuss the article further in this thread if you have more comments (and we can quote-cast to bring it more visibility).
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
In any case, carving out space for gift economics in Farcaster's social economy will certainly involve a reckoning with the workings of "grift" economics.
1 reply
0 recast
2 reactions
