Sigh... there are so many "Blah to earn" projects flying around... and each of them are all based around the idea that you can gain traction and adoption by just throwing tokens and money at people. And sure, just like airdrops... you will attract a whole batch people (or just sybils...) that will come screaming into the project like a batch of seagulls spying an errant piece of food on the beach.

... and just like airdrops... that same batch of feeders will move onto the next feeding frenzy as soon as the incentives dry up or a better opportunity presents itself. This also happens in the space of incentivised pools in DeFi as well. The "community" is fake and opportunistic and there is absolutely no stickiness... and in most cases, the underlying project... be it game, exercise, DeFi or learning is just crap.

In education, we already know that the presence of extrinsic motivators for learning (or playing, or doing anything at all) are skewed and utterly useless ways of learning. Especially if that is the only motivating factor. This is true for early childhood, all the way through to learning at secondary and tertiary levels... and it also holds true for aspect of life. If you hate learning, or if you hate a game, or if you hate your job... paying you more to do it will alleviate the hatred of it... but it won't make you like it!

The only thing that would make a community sticky and actually involved, is for a project to be actually interesting and worthwhile to interact with... in a non-monetary or financial manner. This is the idea of intrinsic motivation, which is a much more powerful motivating factor than anything that occurs from the outside. For instance, a good game... or a great story... or a desire for curiosity... or the desire to exercise. Any of these things are internal motivators...

... but at the moment, many crypto project founders are quite young... and in a crypto-bubble, they don't have the developed wisdom and experience to realise that their confidence and conviction is slightly skewed. Ideas such as "code is law" and the concept that everything can be subject to economic incentives and rational game theory are interesting theoretical and ideological viewpoints that are best viewed as naive, and at worst.. extremist.

However, it does seem to be a fad at the moment, that "blah to earn" is the way to describe many things... play to earn, learn to earn, walk to earn... It is driving me nuts. From my point of view, these are just transparent marketing attempts using known failed motivational models in order to dump on retail...

I think that this sort of thing doesn't really help with the wider perception of crypto... that we are all just greedy opportunists that are forever chasing the next free cash drop... be it token airdrops for "participation" or cheap marketing splashouts. More critically, it brings lots of attention and retail captial to projects that are essentially worthless at best, and derivative copy-pasta at worst.... whilst solid projects that are really aiming to do the real work of laying the digital groundwork of the future are either starved completely, or pass invisible to the small investor and are captured by VCs.

... or perhaps my own idea of what is important is skewed.... and in that case, I would be a little bit disappointed that humanity as a whole essentially is no better than a flock of greedy seagulls fighting over a scrap of dropped chips.

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
GMX.io: Decentralised perpetual futures trading on Arbitrum!
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!