... so we can use those learnings to accelerate our path towards our mission.
Parts 4, 5 and 6 are my opinions about what some of those learnings are...
... knowledge that we can use here at FanBox.
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Many see money as evil.
In history, many evil deeds have been done because of greed and the pursuit of money.
At the same time, I would argue that money is also, thus far, mankind’s best attempt at quantifying value.
Often the people that think money doesn't matter – are those who have enough money: Money to eat, for shelter – and to take care of their loved ones.
Check this out:
Half the world – 3 billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day.
Imagine if we could help these people lift themselves out of poverty…
Imagine if we could help these people earn just another 3 to 5 dollars per day…
… they would have better access to food, shelter and education…
…and we will have made a gigantic stride towards the success of our mission.
But how do we reach billions of people?
Never before today, has anyone had the opportunity to make the difference that we could make.
Thanks to social networking technology, we have a real shot at actually touching the lives of billions of people.
Imagine what Gandhi or Mother Teresa could accomplish if they had today’s technology at their disposal?
Already, a billion people are using Facebook – and Facebook’s purpose is only to help people communicate.
Imagine the rush of another one or two billion people onto Facebook, if they could do there, what you’re doing on FanBox today…
Question 1: Do you think we can create a site like Facebook -- one that not only provides communication tools, but also opens up earning opportunities to its users, and gives back the control of the community and organization to its community members?
Question 2: What has happened in the past when a centrally controlled community...
... where all the money & revenues belonged to a small number of owners...
... opened up to allow all its community members access to the same money-making opportunities...
... and also became democratic and free.
The question is, which type of communities ultimately became more pervasive, popular and powerful?
History is very clear on this, so it really doesn't take a lot of imagination or vision to understand what's about to happen with FanBox in the coming months and year or two.
The quantity of "jobs" we're creating, will dwarf the 600M number that the World Bank recently said needs to be created.
And we will be able to easily double the income of half of the world's population -- those that live on less than $2.50 a day -- within the next few years.
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OK, I have admittedly digressed, as its not hard to get me excited about our mission.
OK, I have admittedly digressed, as its not hard to get me excited about our mission.
As a reminder, we were discussing the importance of money: Money matters.
For FanBox to succeed at anything, focus is essential
As a community, we could focus on providing better communication tools…
…or perhaps we should focus on providing better content publishing tools…
…or we could choose to focus on any one of hundreds of different, useful things.
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see bugs and issues, or features missing that would be very useful...
... but we have learned that to be excellent at anything, you need to have the discipline to focus on that one thing - to the detriment of almost everything else.
So what should our focus be?
So what should our focus be?
We believe that at the core of our approach, we need to be a community that provides opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty.
Our focus needs to be creating monetary value for our members...
... not focusing on community features or other things that take us away from helping our users gain more monetary value.
(Later, when we have more resources, no-doubt we'll go after all little bugs and missing features in all our products...
... to ensure we have an excellent product in all areas. But for now, our focus is creating money opportunities for you).
Money matters.
So, if money matters, why not look back at history, to see which types of communities – or countries -- have best succeeded in creating financial opportunities (IE: MONEY) for their citizens?
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Just a few years ago, many intelligent people argued – with confidence – that communism ultimately works better than capitalism.
Those people have all but disappeared.
Even Cuba’s Castros are all but admitting that communism does not work.
Just compare the difference in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) between South Korea and North Korea:
As you can see, their GDPs were one and the same in the 1970s!
In every such comparison, it has been shown that capitalism works better than any other system, thus far, in helping to uplift its citizens out of poverty.
But unregulated capitalism has serious issues, which we'll discuss in the next post.
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Before we move on, I will admit that I am using the word "capitalism" -- because it simplifies the conversation -- but true capitalism is, in fact, dying.
I'll explain:
In FanBox's version of capitalism, money is still the way wequantify value...
Other than capital (money) what else would you want added to your FanBox Bank every day?
So capital (money) is still how we choose to quantify value and get compensated.
But in our society, the power is shifting away from those with money...
... to those with knowledge.
As we discussed a while ago:
100 years ago, when we all worked in farms and factories, the power belonged to those that owned the farm or the factory...
... in other words, the power belonged to whomever had the capital... the money.
Today, 90% of us no longer work in farms and factories...
... we are knowledge workers...
... and the only money we need to be able to work, is the cost of renting an Internet-equipped PC from an Internet cafe...
... because our most important asset rests between our ears - in our brains: Knowledge.
The power is rapidly shifting away from those with capital (money) towards those with knowledge.
And therefore, by definition, capitalism is dying...
Perhaps someone should call it knowledgism.
Regardless, for now we'll keep calling it capitalism to keep the conversation moving forward.
By "capitalism", we really mean a market-based economy where everyone is free to own assets and earn a living from those assets.
I'll stop here so everyone gets a chance to speak their mind and shape the converstion.
What are your thoughts?
