Southeast Asia’s digital landscape is set to be a whole lot more exciting. Hedera, the Layer 1 blockchain, is teaming up with The Binary Holdings to inject decentralized apps (dApps) into the mobile networks of major telecom providers in Indonesia and the Philippines. We're talking potentially reaching 169 million users. The promise beyond all that? Enable artists to monetize better, increase user retention, and lead a transition to a Web3 future. Enviros are excited, but is it really all sunshine and rainbows, or is a Buttercup of a storm brewing beneath the surface? Is this finally the time that we genuinely empower artists, or is this just another telco land/rug/Web3 grab?
Whose Web3 Is It Anyway?
The idea is compelling: Artists in Southeast Asia, often struggling with limited exposure and revenue streams, get a direct line to millions of potential fans through dApps integrated into existing mobile platforms. They get incentivized with $BNRY tokens based on user interactions. Overnight, art stops being art; it’s a store of value.
Let's hit pause. We've seen this movie before, haven't we? Then big corporations swoop in, again promising the innovation and the creator empowerment, again leaving a wake of disillusioned creators. Think of the early days of music streaming, where artists were promised a fair share of the digital pie, only to find themselves earning fractions of a penny per stream. Will this be different?
That partnership’s success really does depend on the quality of the partnership’s terms. In the case of artists, are they really masters of their work and the money it makes for them? Or are they just being turned into the grease for a telco-executed monetization death spiral? Who controls the narrative?
The $BNRY token is the key. What's the tokenomics? Does it mostly pad the coffers of telecom companies and The Spooky Binary Holdings? Or is this just the latest trend that effectively deprives artists of a meaningful and long-term revenue source. We need transparency. We need accountability. The possibility for artists to receive significant exposure and cultivate communities is really promising. Will this potential be realized? Or will that promise be drowned out by the corporate forces and special interests at play?
It makes me think back to when I saw a local, mom and pop bakery get acquired by an out-of-state conglomerate. They offered the bakers employment, an opportunity to reach more people with their recipes, the recipe for success. What happened? Standardized ingredients, mass production, and the artisan character of the bakery disappeared. Awe/Wonder? Not in this case.
Is This Truly Decentralized Freedom?
Hedera’s Hashgraph technology is marketed as being fast, fair, and secure. Each user interaction is permanently stamped as a unique transaction on the network, providing unparalleled transparency and mitigating the potential for fraud. The simple step of monitoring how users engage brings a few red flags. What data is being collected? How is it being used? Are participants truly aware of what their participation means for them?
We’re speaking about a region with disparate levels of digital literacy education as well as data privacy education. Are users being adequately protected from exploitation? Or are they being provided the tools and understanding to have agency in their decision making with their data?
Think about the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Information, gathered through seemingly innocuous online personality tests, was then used as a tool to target and sway public sentiment. The prospect of $BNRY tokens as consumer loyalty motivators is pretty exciting. On the other hand, it could be incentivizing users to mindlessly interact with dApps through a UX loop without realizing the impacts. Anxiety/Fear? Absolutely.
OneWave, our decentralized app store, is built to make it easier to find dApps and use them, including for people who have never used Web3 before. This is an excellent goal. As good as that initiative is, it might unintentionally thrust users into a murky, treacherous ecosystem.
Artists, Unite! Demand A Seat
This is not mainly a story just about Hedera and The Binary Holdings. It’s all wrapped with a bow of what the future looks like for artists and technology in Southeast Asia. It’s about making sure that artists have a role in creating that future. It’s about stopping the hijacking of creative talent by corporate interests.
I hope artists in Indonesia, the Philippines, and around the world take the time to think critically about these kinds of partnerships that we enter into. Beware of being dazzled by the prospects of fast fortune. Demand transparency. Demand fair terms. Demand a seat at the table.
Talk to each other. Organize. Advocate for your rights. Learn about tokenomics and data privacy. Don't let yourselves be taken advantage of.
After all, the future of Web3 in Southeast Asia rests on it. It all comes down to this: Are we building a truly decentralized and equitable ecosystem, or are we simply replicating the inequalities of the old world in a new digital wrapper?
The answer, my friends, is up to us.
