{"id":2207,"date":"2025-03-20T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/?p=2207"},"modified":"2025-03-20T15:00:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T15:00:34","slug":"why-rewards-rule-us-and-how-web3-could-break-the-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/?p=2207","title":{"rendered":"Why Rewards Rule Us\u2014and How Web3 Could Break the Cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Why Rewards Rule Us\u2014and How Web3 Could Break the Cycle<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We are driven by survival, connection, and have a knack for figuring things out. Master Yoda would say, \u201cCurious humans are.\u201d But what kind of digital Web3 are we creating that meets our natural behavior?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the day, our ancestors hunted, gathered, and camped around fires. It\u2019s easy to see that they were motivated by primal needs: food, safety, and belonging. These weren\u2019t incentives in the sense we would talk about today\u2014no gold stars, paychecks, or even tokens for gaming. I mean our natural instincts that are wired into us. As societies grew, so did our systems. Barter turned into coins, tribes into empires, and behavior got tangled up with rewards. It\u2019s interesting to look at what drives our behavior. Philosophers like Aristotle saw virtue as a driver, while economists like Adam Smith claimed it\u2019s all about self-interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lean back in my chair and look at the digital world we are creating. We\u2019re bombarded with incentives\u2014likes, tokenized rewards, governance tokens after participating. This is clearly shaping how we act, often without us noticing. Someone once said that the only thing not incentivized is walking the dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t have to say that I\u2019m pro-Web3 technology, but I do need to say that we need to be mindful of what we\u2019re building, because you and I will increasingly spend our lives in the digital space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s natural to us? <\/strong>We\u2019re social creatures who thrive on meaning, not just rewards. Studies show we\u2019ll help strangers without a prize, create art for no pay, or stand up for beliefs against the odds. Incentives nudge us, sure, but they don\u2019t own us. We\u2019re also naturally built for cooperation, like sharing a kill back in the day or liking a post today. But we also seem to enjoy competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Web3 space is leaning heavily on incentivizing us to do certain things. It\u2019s built on incentives: earn crypto for creating, stake tokens to vote, trade NFTs for profit. Web3\u2019s pitch is freedom through reward\u2014a system where every action can pay off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even my own work with the Proof of Good framework is about incentivizing actions that benefit society, like transparency or sustainability, using Web3 tools. But the incentives are human-centric in theory: aligning rewards with well-being, not just profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s clear that Web3 is an incentive-heavy model that taps into our love for rewards. A 2024 study by Robert Mowry, explains how rewarding active participation in crypto communities can lead to greater success for projects. He found that giving incentives for meaningful involvement in discussions helps these communities thrive. Another 2024 study shows that even small rewards, like $0.10, can encourage more people to complete tasks in blockchain systems, with some cases seeing a 12-fold increase in participation. Additionally, a review article in Frontiers in Blockchain<\/em> explores how thoughtfully designed reward systems can boost involvement in local community activities. But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d argue that incentives shouldn\u2019t always rule us\u2014and Web3 risks overdoing it. We don\u2019t just chase carrots. We\u2019re messy, meaning-driven souls. I\u2019ve seen it in my work as a health professional. People exercise for joy, not just for a slimmer waist, and my readers tell me they seek spirituality for peace, not points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Web3 connects every action to a token, it could take away our natural motivation\u2014the kind that makes us human, not machines. As a health professional working with behavior science, I see this in self-determination theory: too many rewards can actually weaken motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Web3\u2019s human-centric promise shines when it balances incentives with freedom. Take Bitcoin: it\u2019s about sovereignty, not just profit. Or consider NFTs\u2014beyond the hype, they\u2019re about creators owning their work. But if it\u2019s all gamified pay-to-play, we might lose the soul of it. A thriving digital future needs room for humanness, curiosity, and quirks\u2014not just wallets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Frankly, I know that incentives should not always steer us. They\u2019re tools, not the ultimate solution in creating a human-centered web.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Web3 could align with our nature if it honors both our reward-loving and meaning-seeking sides. Take the reward of kindness itself, for example. Will it prevail over the power of greed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put differently, if Web3 chains us to endless token hunts, it\u2019s less human-centric than it claims. My incentive for this article is the joy of writing. Priceless. We need more initiatives that are priceless and deeply connected to our humanness\u2014not just to our wallets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are driven by survival, connection, and have a knack for figuring things out. Master Yoda would say, \u201cCurious humans are.\u201d But what kind of digital Web3 are we creating that meets our natural behavior?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","wds_primary_category":136,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web3","tag-web3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2209,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions\/2209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptobeyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}