Responding to Gao Xianjian's "Preliminary Ideas for the No-Taiwan Publishing Experiment"

The initiator of LikeCoin and the author of "Blockchain Sociology" Gao Jianshe ( Kin) published an article last week "Preliminary Ideas for the No-Taiwan Publishing Experiment", officially announcing that his second book will challenge Published in a decentralized manner and issued using the concept of "NFT book" (Writing NFT). FAB DAO is an honor to be a part of, one of my moonshot goals this year. "Blockchain Sociology" is my introductory book on web3. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in blockchain.

Today is a harsh world for writers, especially Hong Kong writers. The lack of royalties and royalties is nothing new. At the same time, freedom of speech must also be taken into consideration. At the end of 2021, "Standpoint News", the largest media outlet connected to LikeCoin services, ceased operations, relevant individuals were arrested, and assets were frozen. Coincidentally, LikeCoin, which was born in Hong Kong, was dissolved from the Hong Kong Entity at almost the same time, and officially sublimated into the metaverse and became the real LikeCoin DAO.

LikeCoin is a public blockchain. The entire chain is based on the text economy and is currently compatible with many personal websites and blog services. Civic Likers can clap and send money when they see articles they like, and the architecture ISCN (International Standard Content Number) born from LikeCoin is like the International Book Code ISBN in the physical world, connecting digital content in the form of metadata. Ecosystem. Services currently using LikeCoin include text platform Matters, twitter-like depub.space, and so on.

In July 2022, the LikeCoin blockchain will soon support the NFT function, which is a radical attempt. Kin's new book will also be published in the form of LikeCoin NFT. Kin mentioned in his "preliminary idea" that "I hope that 'NFT book' will give people the feeling of 'book realized with NFT' rather than 'NFT with book as content'." NFT is essentially a kind of metadata, and There is no difference between ISCN or ISBN producing a string of data. The only difference is that it is "exchangeable", because the characteristics of exchange create many possibilities, including the birth of the market.

In the past, we didn't say "I bought a bunch of ISBNs" but "I bought a book." In the future, we will also have a great opportunity to say "I received an (e-book)" instead of "I received an NFT". So during this short period of mutation, how should we understand "book NFT"?

"No one reads books now." Kin breaks the topic with this sentence in "Preliminary Ideas", stating the shrinking book market and the importance of books as culture. I want to make another statement with this sentence. The number of people reading books is indeed decreasing, but the amount of knowledge absorbed by humans now may be unprecedented. Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine, mentioned the concept of "screening" in his book "The Inevitable". He broke up and reorganized the concepts of reading and books.

Kelly believes that reading is a kind of fluid. "In addition to reading books, writing books is also fluid. Treat books at each stage as a process, not a work of art. It is not a noun, but a verb. A book is more like a "book", not just a book. Paper or text. ...Books are a by-product of the book-making process, especially e-books. ...new screen reading methods will amplify, enhance, expand, accelerate, empower and redefine these relationships. "

In June 2021, when I had not yet come into contact with the web3 world, I was invited to participate in an atypical e-book publishing project "The Inevitable Scene of Reading" at the invitation of Yin Bookstore@ Yin Bookstore. This project consists of six e-books and recommended six physical books, published on the Readmoo Chinese e-book platform. I was responsible for interviewing Dr. Yang Sidi, the author of "The Guide to Life". Since "The Guide to Life" recommended 28 more books, "The Guide to Life" is an excellent recommendation network hub. Dr. Yang has devoted himself to reading promotion activities and created a unique interpersonal network of readers and a personalized reading network. Therefore, this special volume explores the extension of the traditional recommendation order culture to the digital age. As Kelly calls a "complete book", this little "Guide to Life." The separate volume> e-book is my practice.

Half a year later, in January 2022, I joined forces with the bookstore again, this time to try web3 "The Fool." Bookplate NFT>. We use NFT as a medium. As long as you collect NFT, you can get three e-books, one of which is "Blockchain Sociology". In this operation, we want to verify a simple concept. The new sales channel allows authors to get more profits, but whether readers can pay for it. The results were very good, the bookstore community and the Tezos Taiwan community supported the concept, and the 50 bookplates were sold out within 24 hours.

Another half year later, in July 2022, this time we really want to challenge the book itself. Kin’s new book will not follow the traditional publishing model in the early stage, and will be sold directly using LikeCoin NFT as a carrier. This may be LikeCoin’s creation NFT ( Genesis), even if it is late at least it is the originator of NFT. This time, we revisit what a book is. Can dozens of pieces of content appearing on a web page be a book? Can there be an economic market for NFTs linked to the back of the book? Perhaps as Kelly said, writing a book is the way to attract attention in this era.

Returning to digital reading, I tried to draw the process of technological and social evolution into a spectrum. As a practical route, bookplate NFT and book NFT are both placed within this spectrum. Kevin Kelly mentioned the concept of electronic copies (called streaming) in "The Inevitable". He believes that information that is infinitely copied and circulated everywhere will be inevitable. I very much agree with this trend. Therefore, I extended the "electronic copy" into two states - "free copy" and "paid original" to cope with the current trend of web3.

Broadly speaking, paper books are paywalls. Information craves to flow. Printing liberated the spread of knowledge and indirectly triggered enlightenment. Books used to be the cheapest carrier of knowledge, but now we regard paid paper books as a financial burden. The Internet inherits the printing press, and electronic copies are quickly copied, allowing information/knowledge to be disseminated in large quantities again. For decades, the digital economy of electronic copies has been discussed over and over again, first with advertising, then with paywalls, and now with the web3 token economy.

Human beings in different eras have repeatedly built paywalls to block the free flow of information. Information is eager to flow, but on the one hand, producers have to exchange for capital, and users must pay. Therefore, "free copies" and "paid originals" are essentially in conflict. Copyright, distribution rights, DRM (digital rights management), subscription system, every era has its own paywall, but there are also corresponding ways to crack it, especially in the era of electronic copies. Therefore, we can say that humans must repeatedly invent new business models in order to continue to obtain funds when copies are flowing in large quantities.

I think any attempt to put up a paywall will ultimately fail. The benefits of free copies are too great. Under this premise, what kind of economic model will make creators willing to write? To quote "The Inevitable" again: "Copies don't cost money, you have to sell something that can't be copied, and what can't be copied? Trust. Trust can't be mass-produced... Free is great, but these things are better, I call it Generative, the value of originality is an attribute that must be generated just once and cannot be forged, copied, or stored.”

Perhaps it is a coincidence with Generative Art. Kelly's use of this term may be to emphasize the elusive instantaneity, like a match striking a spark on a matchbox. Kelly lists eight kinds of originality: immediacy, personalization, interpretation (commentary), authenticity, access, embodiment, patronage, and findability. These are models that may make consumers willing to pay while being open source. Due to limited space, we will not explain and sort out these eight concepts one by one. But here I emphasize that the emergence of NFT media has created the possibility of exchange/transaction, so I assume that "originality" and "exchangeability" are things that must be discussed together. NFT is likely to be the "original" solution in Kelly's eyes.

So how can "free copies" and "paid originals" coexist in the same situation? I list six types of electronic originals that may be native when embedded in web3 and existing architectures. From the perspective of implementation, from simple to difficult, they are: transfer, reading, ownership, sponsorship, contribution, and investment. The transfer is a redemption code, which is currently a common utility, just like the bookplate NFT we have completed. Reading is like today's e-books. What you purchase is a permanent reading right (before the company collapsed). So is it possible for us to collect the key to a virtual library? The discussion of ownership is about possession in the heart. Are digital naming rights and digital reading rights both aspects of possession in the heart? Then NFT and books are indeed a kind of cultural carrier as Kin said. The last three items, sponsorship, contribution, and investment, are a fan economy that also takes into account the possibility of open source. As author certification, publishing plans, and profit sharing, these are all within the framework of the transaction and cannot be forged. The difference is only in the consumer. The focus is just different.

From a reader's perspective, new payment tools are being born in every generation, such as purchases in the one-way era (owning a service or a product), donations in the two-way interaction era (such as live streaming on TikTok), which have become a consumption habit of modern people. ), or the hotly discussed profit sharing by holding shares in the digital asset era (a new consumption model that ties goods and equity together). Of course, don’t forget the advertising model that is appropriate in the era of platform capitalism, which is also a form of payment.

The era of decentralization does not mean that you must use the latest concepts. Every business model is fiercely competing for the market, and no one can predict who will survive. Going back to Kin's new book, this is a crowd-funding model proposed by the creator. Supporters pay in exchange for a token (NFT Token) to support the creator's production costs. This token is broadly speaking a type of blind box. After the book is completed, consumers will receive the paid original copy (NFT), and free copies will also flow around the world at the same time. This is a process of "writing a book". We use the concept of NFT books to implement Kelly's radical imagination.

In this situation, we are very suitable to deconstruct the existing framework of a book. Does the digital book cover have to be static? Why does a book need a cover? How to define the recommendation sequence? What does the editor do? To target 1,000 paying readers, which one is more effective, the publisher and channel system, or the recommendation of opinion leaders? Can I read books for free? (If Jinshitang was the all-you-can-eat spiritual food for me when I was a child, then what is the all-you-can-eat for children now? If quality is ensured) Of course, the most important question is, after the deconstruction is completed, what kind of business model will inevitably come next? Which is the best place to survive in a screen-reading society?

In the future society, we will become accustomed to the absence of piracy. Because the pirated version itself is a free copy, while the genuine version is a paid original based on originality. The quantity, price, definition, and scope of use of the original copy are determined by the publisher, which is in line with the spirit of decentralization. Of course this is a highly specialized industry, and I believe publishers will adapt in new ways, just like many of the new web3 gallery industries are doing now. The above concepts may be complicated, but I believe that the web3 tools that will subvert the market will be services that are easy to understand and can create cash flow. I hope that the service in the future will maintain its good "public nature", which is a universal value in this world.

In the fall of 2021, I forced Kin, who came to Taipei, to sign my "Blockchain Sociology" for me. It was signed "To Doumi: Humanities as the body, technology as the application, and mutual encouragement." After the signing process, this book Truly finished, the book is officially non-homogeneous. Is this a "paid original"?

Kin's next new book will use electronic signatures to create one thousand digital "paid originals." Although it is very, very far away from the real publishing and editing industry, if we regard reading as an industry, the world is actually huge and immeasurable. But let us continue to practice the radical imagination of digital reading!