Ending Platform Captivity! How to Upgrade E-Books with NFTs?
Ending Platform Captivity! How to Upgrade E-Books with NFTs?
#625
GM,
The Giveth micro-donation voting event has concluded. Thank you all for your support. Currently, only Gitcoin is still ongoing, with 7 days left. Let’s dive into the main topic.
First, I’d like to share a cute little story. The image below is from a recent conversation on the Blocktrend Discord. A member asked if Blocktrend still has the feature to collect article NFTs. Since he is already a lifetime member and can’t pay any more, he still wanted to find a way to support Blocktrend.
Article NFTs may currently seem like just another way to monetize content, but their ultimate goal is to end platform dependency, allowing readers to truly own the content—embodying the principle of "not your key, not your content." The story begins in 2021.
Platform Dependency
In 2021, Blocktrend introduced a new experiment1 with article NFTs. At that time, there was a lot of news about NFTs, but few people actually owned them.
NFTs had both advocates and critics, and the best way to dispel myths was to try them firsthand. Blocktrend treated article NFTs as a form of digital merchandise, providing readers with the opportunity to purchase and collect them directly. It coincided with the metaverse craze sparked by Facebook's rebranding to Meta, making the issuance of article NFTs akin to selling newspapers in the metaverse2.
Later, as the metaverse trend cooled down, people gradually "woke up." The image of NFTs began to decline, shifting from a tech buzzword to something less favorable. In reality, NFTs are just a file format that ultimately needs to meet real-world demands.
What problem does NFT solve? Recently, Blocktrend discussed the application of NFTs in cars3 and website domains4, and how the publishing industry is looking to use NFTs to end the platform dependency of e-books.
A friend in the publishing industry told me that more and more people are reading e-books, but independent bookstores can only sell books (hard copy). This is because e-books are controlled by major platforms like Amazon Kindle, Rakuten Kobo, Books.com.tw, and Readmoo, preventing independent bookstores from sourcing e-books directly from publishers as they do with books (hard copy). This has led to a reevaluation of why e-books can't be more free.
Blocktrend has previously discussed the limitations of e-books. Unlike books (hard copy), which can be resold after reading, e-books cannot be resold and even borrowing them requires both parties to be on the same platform. Moreover, platforms can shut down, posing a risk to the reader's library. Recently, Amazon, the e-book giant, announced its exit from the Chinese market, ceasing support services. Microsoft also shut down its e-book service in 2019, forcing refunds for purchased books and causing readers to lose their notes.
Why aren't the e-books you purchase truly yours? People deserve new options.
Web3 Online Bookstore
Currently, the most focused web3 startup in digital publishing is Liker Land, the online bookstore that Blocktrend is using. Liker Land is like a budding "Books.com.tw" with a limited selection. Although its registration and purchasing process isn’t as streamlined as Books.com.tw, readers can at least complete purchases with a credit card. After payment, the books can be read directly on the Liker Land website.
If the goal is simply to read, then the NFT and wallet behind an e-book don’t really matter. However, the most distinctive feature of Liker Land is that e-books can be resold and even lent to friends. Even if the platform shuts down in the future, there won’t be any issues with refunds. This is because the e-book isn’t stored in the platform's account but rather in each user’s personal wallet. Just like storing BTC in a cold wallet, there’s no need to worry about an exchange going bankrupt.
Liker Land reveals a whole new possibility for e-books. When e-books are no longer tied to a platform and return to individual ownership, people can switch platforms freely. This will revolutionize the entire e-book market, shifting it from centralization to decentralization.
Liker Land enables readers to truly own their e-books. This doesn’t refer to holding a PDF or ePub file, but to owning the purchase certificate of the e-book. By presenting the purchase certificate, readers can unlock content on any platform, and that purchase certificate is the NFT.
When e-books become as autonomous as physical books, people can also choose the e-reader they prefer. Platforms promote their own readers mainly to ensure that readers will continue buying books from them in the future. But why shouldn’t a book bought on one platform, like Books.com, be readable on a different e-reader, like Kobo?
This is akin to the "Harvesting Cycle5" mentioned in Read Write Own. It benefits the booksellers but is highly disadvantageous to readers.
Although Liker Land’s online bookstore is still small and the selection of books is limited, articles and books are both publishable content. If books can succeed, then Blocktrend’s articles can follow suit. In the future, Blocktrend’s articles won’t need to be read exclusively on the Substack platform. This is the decentralized revolution of the publishing industry.
My vision for Blocktrend’s article NFTs is that, in the future, each article's "e-book" could be airdropped directly into members' wallets based on their membership status. Readers would not only be able to read articles on the website but also open an online bookstore, connect their wallets, and access the content through third-party platforms.
Currently, readers actively purchase article NFTs, possibly to collect them or to show support for Blocktrend. But in the future, these article NFTs could become a part of membership benefits. Even if the Blocktrend website were to shut down, readers could still open their wallets, find all the past articles stored in their NFTs, and even put them up for a massive sale on NFT trading platforms!
At this point, you might be wondering, if it's so great, why not start doing it now? That’s because there is a "technical upgrade" for e-books on the horizon—the transition of e-books from LikeCoin to Ethereum.
Moving E-Books
Currently, all the e-books in the Liker Land bookstore are built on the LikeCoin blockchain. Recently, LikeCoin founder Kin Ko proposed migrating assets from the LikeCoin chain to Ethereum and gradually shutting down LikeCoin operations.
Strictly speaking, this is a backend system upgrade or migration and ideally shouldn’t affect the user experience on the frontend. It’s similar to how Netflix can switch cloud services as long as it doesn’t cause any downtime or impact user experience. However, with the current state of blockchain technology, it’s not yet possible to make these changes without users noticing.
Why move the e-books? The reason for operating an independent LikeCoin chain has disappeared. A blockchain is like a city6, requiring massive infrastructure to sustain it. After LikeCoin was established in 2017, the rising gas fees on Ethereum prompted the creation of a dedicated blockchain. However, running an independent blockchain comes with significant costs, especially the infrastructure, which can be overwhelming for a startup.
Now, Ethereum's transaction fees have significantly decreased, and there are many tools and infrastructures available. For instance, the Magic embedded wallet used by Polymarket7, the subject of last week's article, is an Ethereum tool that doesn’t support LikeCoin. If Liker Land bookstore wanted to adopt a similar registration process, it would have to develop its own wallet, which is like asking a bookstore owner to build roads and bridges—an unprofitable endeavor.
Therefore, I believe Kin Ko’s proposal to move the residents and assets of LikeCoin back to Ethereum is a practical and rational choice. Ethereum has the largest global blockchain development community, with roads and marketplaces already built. Developers also have the opportunity to receive public funding from the Ethereum Foundation. Businesses like Liker Land can then focus solely on digital publishing.
Returning to the beginning of this article, one of the reasons Blocktrend paused the issuance of NFTs is the lack of infrastructure. These NFTs are currently on the LikeCoin chain and have limited use beyond being collectible items. No wonder members only think about them when they want to continue spending 😂. Once businesses, assets, and users migrate to Ethereum, there will be greater potential to unlock the practical uses of article NFTs—ending platform captivity and driving the decentralization of e-books.
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