gift-economics

The Studio Slowcore team is excited to introduce the new Gift Economics channel: a Farcaster-native small-scale gift economics lab and roundtable.

Stewarded and moderated by Danica Swanson, @trigs.eth, and @y0b, the channel was kindly gifted to us by @ted. 

We plan to host thoughtful deep-dive conversations that cater to long-form readers and systems thinkers. In particular, the channel will encourage open and earnest discussions about structural factors that influence how writers, artists, and other creative professionals are (and aren't) paid. There's a lot of secrecy about compensation in the arts, for all kinds of reasons. Our stewards help facilitate more clarity about where things stand.

Gift Economics Channel FAQ 

Q: What is a gift economy?

In its simplest form, a gift economy is an "arrangement for the transfer of goods or services without an agreed method of quid pro quo."* 

Q: Who's behind Studio Slowcore?

- Danica Swanson (founder, co-steward, channel owner, word-slinger-in-chief)
- @trigs.eth (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, community call host)
- @y0b (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, gift economics consultant)

All of us also have other professional commitments. Our intention for phase one of our launch is to experiment with hybrid gift + market economic models to sustain our two channels (/gift-economics and /slowcore-hq) long-term — without tokenizing our community and turning it into the product. If we succeed, we will shift more of our time and attention to Studio Slowcore matters.

Q: Why is the studio launching exclusively on Farcaster?

The simplest answer: we decided to build what we wanted to see in the world, and we believe Farcaster is the best place to do that. 

The slightly longer answer: it's Farcaster all the way down for us. The seeds of our studio were sown when the Farcaster community seized on the concept of "slowcore" and turned it into a movement. Since then, everything that led up to our launch has been deeply influenced by Farcaster and its unique social economy. Every studio contributor is an active daily user of the purple app who cares about its future.  

Creative people have gifts, and we believe those gifts come with a responsibility to use them well. Toward that end, we need structures that facilitate the giving of gifts (and routing them to the right places) instead of defaulting to extractive economic patterns. We think Farcaster's social economy is the right place to build such structures, since it's already a type of hybrid gift + market economy of the sort we've never seen anywhere else. 

We also prefer to keep the studio small. We don't need (or even want) to chase maximum reach; it would only add a tax on our valuable time and attention.

We may write an even longer deep-dive answer to this question in phase two of our launch.

Q: Why are you starting with channels?

We think channels are directionally correct as cozy corners (not hashtags), and can work well for our invite-only communities if they're well-stewarded. A new form factor may be needed if channels are to thrive long-term, but in the meantime we'll give it our best as co-stewards. It helps that we use @cura for channel maintenance!

Q: How does the Gift Economics channel work?

Anyone can follow the channel. Membership is invite-only. We don't have an application process; our mods send out invites at their discretion. The best way to increase your chances of an invite is to respond thoughtfully and kindly to casts in the channel, and make it clear (through your behavior) that you've read the rules.

Read more in our channel guidelines.

Q: I'd like to learn more about gift economics. Where should I start?

We're working on a reading list! In the meantime you could start with "Sacred Economics" by Charles Eisenstein, which is available in full online.

Q: Why aren't you launching a token?

The short answer: we're starting with gift economics experiments, so we don't need one.

The longer answer: we want to help build a social economy that can sustain creative people long-term. We think the overwhelming majority of the "creator economy" in crypto as it stands (what @abundance has called the "Tokenized Attention Creator Economy") is failing to meaningfully deliver on the value prop of rewarding creative people appropriately for their work. Tokenizing in exchange value terms risks reducing the gift value of our communities. 

Our thesis is that economic models to sustain long-term creative work and community-building begin (but do not end) with gift culture. 

The standard ways of monetizing creative work extract gift value, convert it into profit, and route the lion's share of it away from creative people. We want to go in the other direction: restore and preserve gift value flows, return more value to those who actually create it, and convert profit into gift. 

It's a challenging systems design problem! But if there's anywhere it can be done, it's on Farcaster.

Q: How can I help with the gift economy experiment?

Consider following and contributing to our roundtable discussions in the comments on our casts in the channel, or just talk about gift economics on Farcaster in general. 

Gifts of crypto sent to the studio's multisig (slowcore.eth) will be gratefully accepted. We will route them toward retro-rewards for the gift labor done to bootstrap our channels. Gifts can also help free up more time for us to steward the channels responsibly in the future. Please do not gift any funds that are needed for your own support. 

We'd also love to see more Farcasters start their own gift circles and micro-gift-economy experiments.

NOTE: We will NOT be launching a coin. 
Not for our studio. 
Not for ourselves as individuals.
Not for our channels.

*(Thanks to ServiceSpace for the gift economy definition).

/gift-economics is a great new cozy corner on farcaster with a well thought out mission :)

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Thanks for your kind words, Sahil. Looking forward to some good conversation in the channel.

Appreciate the work you've done with @cura, which helped make this launch so much more manageable for us.