Republike: Decentralized and User-Owned Social Media that Improves The Way We Live and Communicate [Essay]
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ESSAY:
“Republike - decentralized social media that improve the way we live and communicate“
“Decentralized social networking is waiting for its Satoshi moment.“ - Naval Ravikant
Context:
Today's social media market is dominated by a few centralized platforms that do not take into account the distinct needs of individual users and different communities. All the features and designs we see are a top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions that are often not tailored to the separate needs of users and provides no space for different opinions and improvements.
This lack of uncensored, user-owned, and free from the algorithm-driven space is a huge problem that people may not see because we live in a closed bubble, and a vicious cycle of continuous dopamine hits, which distracts us from noticing the problem of lack of platforms for discussion and the negative impact of ads and data-driven social media business models.
I would say that we live in some kind of stagnation, where people, on the one hand, know that the current state of things is not beneficial, but on the other hand, they do not know any better alternatives. Additionally, living inside the algorithm-driven bubble of polarizing fake news and chaos wouldn’t make it easier to find solutions.
And the answer lies in yet unexplored field, as we may notice innovation often happens there, where nobody pays attention. Therefore, my intuition tells me that the alternative is the new model of social media, which is, first and foremost, user-owned, then user-oriented. This belief in the possibility of building a platform for meaningful discussions and also any other activities that are algorithm-free and democratic is the greater goal and purpose of Republike.io.
In short, we build decentralized, unpolarized, and user-owned social media where people can shape the world by providing high-quality content, showing respect, and being altruistic rather than being shaped by the digital world.
This ability to almost entirely examine your property rights is dear to our hearts, emphasizing the individual side of each value and embracing our commitment to the values on which our culture has been built, and true democracy can rise. It sets us apart from today's social media, where you are a product and don't even have freedom of speech. We want to give the power back to the individuals.
We believe that the foundation of modern societies should be not unpersonalized and polarizing unification but respect for individuality and diversity, values that accompanied our culture for a long time. This belief in individuals but even more in human nature and what brings us together rather than what separates us allowed us to push the boundaries, set the innovative direction, and laid out the new order for ages.
This faith accompanied, for example, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and even the founding fathers of the USA. All of the mentioned people have done something different, but all in the same spirit of innovation and exploring new ground. It's a context around the mindset that we should have to enter a digital nation built around common values - Republike.io.
Mechanism:
Republike.io is a new generation of social media, so we have to have a new, fresh perspective on the structure and culture of the platform, both from the philosophical and technological sides. This kind of social media could be placed in the broader context of the next generation of user-owned and decentralized internet - web3.
Since the great majority of users are used to web2.0 patterns and a lot of them are still far from web3 culture, Republike has been conceived and designed as a community-driven social media that proposes a bridge between web 2.0 and web3 social media by mixing the web 2.0 user journey codes with web3 philosophy and culture.
To achieve this goal of building a new kind of social media in the much broader context of a new decentralized internet, while based on the existing user journey code, we had to design several holistic mechanisms that allow us to do so. It takes thinking multilayered and establishing common layers of agreement on the philosophical and technological levels.
1. Constitution
Today’s social media are pretty known for their non-bringing terms of services that nobody is reading, but their impact is tremendous. In short, it’s permission to sell your data. Republike, Instead of non-bringing terms of services proposes the new model that brings up the Constitution that establishes essential values that have a real impact and shape the future view of the platform while providing mutual respect.
Each user (whom we often call citizens) goes through the onboarding process of values that are contained in the word C.O.M.M.U.N.I.S, which means common. This sense of common goods, interests, passions, but also fears, and struggles is what we to work together on to truly lay out the space for democratic experiences.
The list of the eight intangible principles in the word C.O.M.M.U.N.I.S reflects the attitude and mindset we want to disseminate, so the first principle is the foundation and backbone of Republike - "Constructive Mindset, no censorship". In short, we value mindset over content because we assume that we can talk about nearly anything with a good attitude. The intangible values and principles are:
Constructive mindset, no censorship
Opinions aren’t dictated by algorithms
Makers, creators, explorers and open minds are valued on Republike
Merge with a community
Unity around shared values
Negativity is unwelcome
Ideas can change and are not defining us
Safe users’ data
We don’t store your data, and we don’t treat the users as products, instead, we’re focusing on real impact, and to provide the best quality we have to ensure that our values are crystal clear.
The second part of the Constitution is votable Terms of Services that are continuously improved with the citizens regularly voting through the Republike’ Governance system.
By Constitution, we want to highlight our attitude and the importance of long-term relationships over short-run hype. Clear mission and values allow us to bring people with a positive-sum mindset, and at the beginning of the platform gather meaningful contributors and valuable early adaptors.
2. $1 Monthly Subscription
This topic of the subscription model is worth considering from the two, directly and indirectly, connected sides, from the business perspective and the users-oriented and content provided.
Today’s social media falsely describe themselves as “free“ where the reality is the opposite, and even worse than you may think because you’re selling your data for free! We look at our subscription model as the most effective and fairest one we can imagine, as long as the model stays democratic, inclusive, and user-owned.
This subscription-based model allows us to exist and meet our expectations from the long-term perspective of building a project. Therefore, $1 allows the project to:
be self-owned
be self-governed
fully redistribute the profits to users
last but not least, favors awareness rather than compulsion
It’s the runaway from the chaos of today’s ads and data-based social media business models. $1 Monthly Subscription allows us to build social media free from ads, data theft, the polarization of ideas, and censorship.
Additionally, as I mentioned before, it is also interesting from a user and content point of view. Our subscription model is a reverse approach to what we may see because, in today's social media, there's no economy behind the content, which significantly degrades its quality. On top of that, the responsibility for providing quality content is pretty low because people don’t feel the risk of loss.
I found that when people have “skin in the game“ they make decisions in a different, often significantly better way. It’s because they feel the responsibility and the sense of possible loss. After all, they vote through what they value and feel scarce. So, people only vote for content they deeply believe in and feel enthusiastic about.
In the case of Republike, people vote for content through the AUREUS token, which I will describe later in the essay. However, the token is provided through the subscription model in the first place, then later on, on global exchanges.
3. Community
We previously mentioned our sense of belonging to the values that built and accompanied our culture through decades and expresses itself in our belief in individuals. Our mission is to build a highly engaged community and a platform that allows citizens to participate and contribute in a meaningful way.
Therefore, our primary goal for starting a new era of social networks and social interactions in the spirit of ownership and freedom from polarization and algorithms is to bring together actively engaged citizens that share the same values.
To meet our expectations of building a highly engaged community that we perceive as the powerful force of the Republike as a whole, we established a strategy that targets three groups of contributors for specific purposes, offering them fair roles and compensations.
1) The Founding Fathers / Mothers - highly engaged people who are also specialists in their fields, e.g. technology, economics, philosophy, but are equally fascinated with the transformation of the society in a bigger picture, for instance in the context of decentralization and consider how to improve the way we communicate.
They will be limited to a small number of people, closely working with the Founders, building the structure of the Republike and feeding the DNA. The Founding Fathers and Mothers will be highly rewarded in tokens and NFT for their contributions and for being the powerful force of the project.
2) The Founding Citizens - engaged early users limited to the 10 thousand people who are actively taking part in improving the platform, testing the features, doing beta tests, publishing the first quality content, and discussing the Constitution. The Founding Citizens will work closely and contribute via Discord and Telegram channels. They will receive limited rewards and privileges.
3) Early Citizens - users limited to the 100 thousand of people, and they will be also rewarded and get the privileges of 3rd rank.
The notion of building Republike from the bottom-up perspective with the support of believers and builders of the idea of decentralized social networks is beneficial for all sides, and we're enthusiastic about an approach that highlights the power of a highly committed community.
Additionally, the team behind Republike is a believer in grassroots initiatives and the power of individuals. Therefore we want to embrace their power, oppositely to what today’s social media do. We believe in the full freedom and expression of people’s ideas, following the meaningful sentence said by Noah Chomsky:
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
As a team behind Republike, we are not highly enthusiastic about VC involvement in web3 projects. To remain Republike.io fully democratic and bottom-up, we decided to embrace the power of the committed community, contributors, and visionaries.
The path we took is harder, especially at the beginning, as it takes much effort to build a respectful and meaningful community. However, this approach is more effective and beneficial in the long run.
4. Tokenomics
To support Republike's ecosystem and give users more rights and spaces for contributions and improvements, we made a utility token called AUREUS. Citizens with this token, which is part of the monthly subscription, become the owners of the share of the Republike. Because in our vision, as a user of the platform you must own a piece of it.
And the consequences behind this philosophy are highly wider because users started to feel the skin in the game, and all the influences behind it, for example, they behave more like the owner and feel more connected. All the behaviors and actions started to be aligned with the general philosophy and our founding principles. Moreover, the results of the token economy are much broader and highly applicable to the platform in various terms.
From the general aspect, tokens granted to Citizens as part of the subscription provide the liquidity in the Foundation’s liquidity pool. It allows establishing the long-term foundations that help maintain the economy and longevity of the platform.
From the bottom-up and users-oriented perspective, tokens give them ownership and allow them to perform crucial actions, such as rewarding users’ contributions, buying the special features, and shortly buying the content - posts, comments.
AUREUS token can be earned by the quality of the interactions on posts, comments, or moderations. And the more tokens users have, the higher their % of the ownership of the platform.
Symbolically, the total and maximum supply at release will be 1 AUREUS token for one inhabitant of Earth.
5. DAO - Decentralized Autonomous Organization
To reach our greater goal of the new model of social media we have to have a highly engaged, empowered community that provides high-quality content with the support of new tools such as tokens. In order to do so, we have to implement the DAO model - Decentralized Autonomous Organization that would be led democratically by users.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are the members-owned communities without centralized leadership. The DAO model is a safe and effective way to work with open and like-minded people around the globe, using the power of the code, Internet, decentralization, and common purpose.
Moreover, all activities are transparent, public, and democratic as voting is required and carried out by members to make significant changes. So there would be no situation where a bad decision of one CEO ruins the whole project.
Moving towards the decentralized ecosystem is possible by shifting the perspective from just simply being user-oriented to a user-owned platform. Therefore, the DAO model would be a great choice that allows to embrace the users’ power and emphasize their impact by involving the community in Republike’s global strategy, management, and decisions.
AUREUS token provides the users the voting power and allows them to participate in a meaningful way and have a direct influence. Our token drives the whole system behind democratic participation from different perspectives. For example, citizens would be able to vote for the changeable part of the Constitution, the Terms of Services (TOS). Members will be also able to vote for the content they support. Additionally, each member can stake a part of the AUREUS tokens on a project he believes. And the member will receive an annual return on each staking.
There’s also a great chance for high-quality content and projects to be visible and work towards a better, shared future. We view the combination of the economy behind the content and the concept of having the “skin in the game“as a way of improving the way we use social media apps.
The voting power wouldn’t be as on many blockchains measured by the number of governance tokens (AUREUS) but on the status materialized by the governance NFT to avoid the oligarchic bias (which we previously described in the chapter on community). It's crucial to highlight the voting power by citizens' status, not their wealth to emphasize the mindset and culture-oriented approach.
Firstly, we don’t want to be in favor of people who didn’t contribute and improve the platform but have money to buy a lot of tokens. Our approach is mindset-centric, and by that, we want to measure the status, not the amount of wealth. Secondly, we don’t want to exclude the less wealthy users and allow others to take advantage of them. We propose a new model aligned with our founding principles and the general philosophy behind Republike.
To this end, our governance model has been designed as if we were to propose the fairest, most inclusive, uplifting, and effective governance of the physical world, and we could call it a social meritocracy, not just one-tier democracy. We have reflected on an inclusive concept that we can imagine meeting a variety of human specifics from the global perspective while paying attention to the unique characteristics of each individual. This early governance is based on four variables of which we designed measurable metrics:
1) Altruism - the more you give, the more you get.
2) Respect - onboarding each citizen to commit the respect for the Constitution (Founding Principles). When content is reported, a panel of jury members is selected randomly. Each jury member votes and can get a reward if that vote follows the direction of the majority.
3) Quality - associated with good, interesting, and uplifting content that shows a direct impact on community mindset. High-quality content engages people and makes them think more in-depth. Upvoted, rewarded, and highly commented content.
4) Specific hard skill - We will implement a mechanism that will allow us to measure people's skills in different fields and give them more weight in related topics. For example, a mathematician gives more importance to mathematical topics
AUREUS will be a token of value possible to buy on various exchanges and crypto marketplaces. It is worth noticing that the AUREUS token bought on external exchanges (after listing) wouldn't be taken into account for upgrading the status of a citizen. In conclusion, mindset over wealth.
6. Blockchain and Web3 technologies as a tool, not a goal itself.
Republike is designed as the bridge that connects the two worlds - well-known user journey code from the web 2.0 with the new philosophy of the web3 Internet in the spirit of ownership and decentralization.
The first iterations of the app would happen off-chain to become more familiar for the regular user of the Internet. Therefore, the first connection would happen through the mobile phone number, not through crypto wallets and blockchain gateways.
Over time, the whole project will be moving to on-chain solutions and be fully decentralized. However, we don’t want to exclude but give the users from the so-called “web 2.0“ a familiar sense of using the app and the fresh air and better-designed solutions. Republike aims to overthrow the old model by returning to the Inspiration at the roots of the Internet while relying on Web3 technologies.
Tokenomics was a good introduction to the next point of the entire technology stack, which we are using on purpose as good support for our idea. We don’t rely on technologies associated with the web3 to spread the buzzwords and trends but as a reasonable choice that follows our philosophy.
The blockchain technology that runs without centralized authority and allows registering the transactions in a very transparent and public way is strongly aligned with our philosophy. And since Republike will generate a lot of microtransactions, the blockchain ecosystem needs a superfast and low fee infrastructure. Additionally, at the early point, considering the building costs, we will be in need to have an EVM-compatible blockchain. Therefore, the sensible choice would be Layer 2 solutions such as Polygon or Neon Labs based on the Solana network. At this point, we’re not sure about the blockchain choice and the fast-moving technology and possibilities don’t make it easier.
As I mentioned, the staking would be an appreciated state of things and, in addition, an excellent way of encouraging members to participate and contribute. Our stacking smart contract will be open-source code under the MIT License available on Github.
People who used to get acquainted with the web3, cryptocurrencies, and overall blockchain technology are already familiar with the crypto wallets and blockchain gateways. We plan to develop our own wallet to secure control over our application and integrate features without dependency on third parties and intermediaries.
We want to provide the mentioned features in a very smooth manner, therefore, developing a mobile application that offers a complete and accessible user experience based on a mid-custodial design would be a crucial aspect to prepare us for mass adoption. We think that there’s a possibility to combine the true sense of decentralization with accessibility and affordability. And that’s what we strive for, thinking about the technology stack.
Blockchain-based technologies are improving and changing rapidly, therefore, we want to think deeply about the technological side of the project to maintain our long-term goal and affordability, preparing us for mass adoption.
Summary:
Republike proposes a new model of social media that is decentralized, unpolarized, user-owned, democratic, and free from the dictatorship of algorithms. We used to look at social media as a great market for exchanging ideas, visions, and thoughts.
Unfortunately, they don’t have a lot in common with the primary greater goal. This state of things can’t last forever, and there’s a high need to change. And we don’t want only to improve it with technological tools but also with the support of the whole philosophy behind the Republike.
Considering how great innovations made our culture by being open-minded, pushing boundaries, taking what was the best from tradition, and rendering it fresh. We feel a deep connection to the idea of innovation, and we believe that there’s a way to connect the primary goal of social media with the new technology stack that allows them to be fully democratic, decentralized, and user-owned. We’re not true to our tradition unless we seek what’s new.
Republike has not been conceived as a product in the first place but as a new model. In the same approach, it has not been thought for the digital world only but mainly from a global human perspective, betting on the fact that the power of social media can be used to uplift people as whole human beings rather than to make them addicted and depressed robots.
Finally, I would like to share the motto of one of the most influential and innovative poets of the 20th century, Ezra Pound, who announced his mission in three words.
“Make it new“
I hope you found this essay thought-provoking and we are witnessing a slight transition to a better, shared future.
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