Incentives & systemsOussama Ammar
Create utility before encouraging speculation
Excitement about an asset is different from demand for the service behind it.
A technology can attract attention before it has a durable use. That attention may finance experiments, but it can also conceal weak demand. Measure actual use and value beyond trading activity.
A network can provide a useful service without resembling a conventional operating company. Its users may value transfer, control, or continued access. That utility does not automatically establish the investment value of every related asset.
Separate the service, the incentive, and the financial claim. Each requires its own explanation. Do not let an attractive story about one stand in for evidence about the others.
Do not import scarcity without a purpose
Physical goods can face constraints that a digital product does not share. Recreating those constraints can be a design choice. Ask who benefits from that choice and how it affects useful participation.
Artificial scarcity may reward holding an asset while discouraging people who want to create or use something. Consider whether value can instead come from skilled work, art, reputation, or useful service. The rules should support the activity that makes the system valuable.
Access and portability can affect that participation. A user may value the ability to keep using their work or move it elsewhere. Evaluate those needs directly rather than assuming that restriction is the only viable model.
Scarcity is not automatically wrong. It needs a purpose connected to the product and its participants. Do not treat a borrowed physical limitation as a natural law of digital design.