I’ve spent the last 13 years building nostr:nprofile1qqsq2urhn2dfn6q3yl0r00w0263gkse28u9qz3s6nm07ll5vjc54v9qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3kamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwvf5hgcm0d9h8qctjdvhxxmmdf5kvek on the back of the very platforms I criticise. Google, Meta, LinkedIn, X… I know them better than most because my entire career has been spent navigating their systems, their algorithms, and their incentive structures.
And if I’m honest, in a lot of ways I’ve been part of the problem. I’ve helped businesses grow inside an ecosystem that is fundamentally unhealthy. I’ve played the game because you have to play the game if you want to grow a company today.
Organic reach is gone. Attention is pay-to-play. Most businesses simply cannot survive without digital marketing.m in some form.
But the more I study the economics behind these platforms, the more obvious it becomes that the model itself is broken. They extract attention, manipulate behaviour, and amplify whatever keeps people emotionally reactive. Not because they’re evil, but because that’s the only way their ad-based, fiat-driven model functions.
So it raises the uncomfortable question: how do you build and scale a business without feeding the very system you know is destroying genuine human interaction?
The honest answer is that it’s difficult. There’s no magic switch. But there is a way forward.
You build differently.
You create real value instead of noise.
You focus on long-term relationships instead of short-term clicks.
You build ecosystems instead of funnels.
You align incentives so that everyone involved wins from actual performance and productivity.
That’s why I have rebuilt nostr:nprofile1qqsq2urhn2dfn6q3yl0r00w0263gkse28u9qz3s6nm07ll5vjc54v9qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3kamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwvf5hgcm0d9h8qctjdvhxxmmdf5kvek around the VCM (Value Creation Metric ) model.
It’s why I started The Bitcoin Transition. It’s why I’m leaning into decentralised tech like Nostr. I want to be part of building a direction that leads out of the mess, not deeper into it.
We can’t change the entire digital landscape overnight. But we can change how we operate inside it. We can build businesses that serve people instead of exploiting their attention. We can anchor growth in real value creation. We can stop pretending the system is fine and start actively designing something better.
Because at the end of the day, the tools aren’t the problem.
The incentive structures are.