Kiwi doesn't have an entertainment factor

Kiwi doesn't have an entertainment factor...

I uninstalled Warpcast yesterday. I do that occasionally to cope with my raging dopamine addiction. But this morning, when I wanted to get my social media hit, I felt like I was missing something. I swiped left and right and opened X, Substack, and YouTube, somehow looking for gratification. And then it hit me...

"I don't want to open Kiwi News right now. I just got up and want my bite-sized morning dose of social media. I want Warpcast, or, if I cannot, let's have at least a little bit of X."

The situation eventually resolved in me watching a few YouTube shorts, but it got me thinking about Kiwi News's positioning as an educational platform.

It's cringe to say this, but I really enjoy being on Kiwi News and reading a lot. I walk 10000 steps a day, and I often have many chores in the household like ironing, cleaning, and tidying up, for which I often just put on an article using Readwise's Reader or the Substack app's text-to-speech. I enjoy the recent progress that text-to-speech AIs have made, and I don't mind them still sounding a little bit robotic. These things have given me an insane level of accessibility to more complex and longer texts. While a year ago it seemed impossible to even just read a quarter of one of Eugene Wei's epic two-hour reads, I now happily listen to those texts while walking to the swimming pool, knowing that I'm also doing something useful for my body while getting smarter.

That said, this morning, just after getting up, I really didn't feel like putting on another one of those heavy-hitting pieces and concentrating on them. I just wanted to fulfill my desire and get a bite-sized dopamine hit.

Still, I'm proud to say that Kiwi has a lot of great texts and that some of them excite me to grind harder, and some make me feel inspired or motivated. While vacuuming or cleaning and reading these texts, I really feel like getting an edge over those who spend their time mindlessly scrolling Twitter and Farcaster. I never thought I'd say this, but today, I enjoy a well-written text as another person maybe enjoys a good wine.

Another thing I really value about Kiwi News is that it isn't dispersing my attention. Sometimes, when I open X or Farcaster, although I had a specific purpose for opening the app, for example, writing an update about what we've shipped today, I find myself ten minutes later surprised and confused as to what I was supposed to do when having opened the app. It then takes a mindful effort to remember that I wanted to give an update on features we shipped with Kiwi News. And once I do remember my actual purpose, I feel regret for letting an app dictate my attention so much.

Still, Kiwi News's entertainment factor is starting to feel more important, especially this morning not having Warpcast installed, as I do think there is a value to providing this factor to users when they just want that bite-sized social media hit. It is particularly true as Kiwi News's interaction thresholds are insanely high today, as even for writing to the site, we expect you to have read or written an entire article. And, if you come to read, before upvoting, we expect you to sift through a bunch of articles' headlines, carefully picking one that you like, to then make a 5-10 minute bet on reading it. Quite the ask.

Hence, to continue not having to check X or Warpcast apps, I'm wondering what we could add to the platform that increases its social entertainment factor, decreases its engagement bar, and makes it more fun. I don't really have any good answers here; there are some obvious ones, like comments or opening a memes sub-kiwi. Granted, these would improve the entertainment factor, but I continue to wonder how we can keep the app clean of the hyper-capitalistic, attention-grabbing nonsense methods of modern social networks. Kiwi is genuinely an amazing place to learn about crypto culture today; I don't want to compromise that, but then how do we lower the bar?

Anyway, this reflection today taught me a useful lesson. It is that sometimes, I tend to look too much outside for answers to my problems as I founder. I tend to forget that my intuition and listening to my experiences is a really valuable compass guiding me in new directions. And that following the paved path of others often just leads to bad memetic imitation. I know this, but I have to continue to recall it! "True creativity and originality come from within - even if the world's attention is dispersed on other things in that moment."

If you've read this far, please join us tomorrow at 6 pm CET for the Kiwi News Open Office call, where we can discuss this in more depth! Click here to get your invite! I'm looking forward to seeing you all.

Best, Tim