Lately, I've been watching the disputes over secondary market royalties in the creator economy again, and it seems everyone is arguing about whether it should be mandatory or not. But I'm more concerned about whether users are willing to pay that little extra for the work, or if they're just being forced by contracts. Honestly, when mandatory measures encounter cross-chain, aggregators, Layer 2 solutions, and various workarounds, it ultimately becomes a game of who can evade fees best, which is quite awkward.

These days, the "profit stacking" approach of staking/sharing security has also been criticized as a copycat tactic. I suddenly connect the dots: whether it's royalties or profits, relying on structure to lock in people's behavior may seem clever in the short term, but in the long run, it easily turns into mutual exploitation and circumvention. Anyway, now when I see project announcements, I first ask: Can it be used? Can it allow creators to keep earning without moral coercion?

What I’ve learned isn’t techniques, but that you shouldn’t treat economic incentives as magic, especially not expect them to solve human nature.