Content:

• The Web3 Sustainability Loop

In this article Trent McConaghy shows that we can draw inspiration from successful models in businesses and national economies in order to design sustainable web3 projects.

Company Business Models

• Web1 revenue generation: treat the webpage as an application to buy things or interact with others, and take a cut. Ebay/ Craigslist.

• Web 2 revenue generation:

  • Paid subsrciptions (NYT, Salesforce)
  • Transaction fees (Paypal, Stripe, Uber, AirBnB)
  • Afiliate program (Amazon Associates
  • Ads ( Google AdWords, Facebook/Twitter, Youtube)

• Revenue is only part of the picture. Businesses needed funds to get started in the first place, and funds to grow aggressively when at risk of being defeated by fast moving competitors

• To address this businesses can issue stock and sell it to investors for cash. This is a “superpower” that allows them to pull capital from the future into the present

National-level sustainability/growth models

• Nations take in revenue from taxes which is used to create and grow an ecosystem of laws, public infrastructure, defense, etc. so that citizens can thrive and conduct commerce. When citizen and business well-being goes up, tax revenues go up, and the nation becomes more successful.
• Taxation is not the only source of funds. Governments can issue/print fiat money in times of economic need. With the hope that the injection of cash into the economy helps to boost consumption with the goal to let the system heal itself and smooth out dips with economic downturns. Used sparingly and with good judgment, printing fiat is a tool in a nation’s toolbox to spur economic growth and improve citizen well-being.

Web3-sustainability/growth models