Good Morning Everyone,
The concept of a walled garden is not a new one. They have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. A precious garden enclosed by high walls serves many purposes, including providing protection from animal or human intruders and also acts to create microclimates, which allows for things to grow and flourish inside the walls, that may not otherwise be able to, due to the temperate climate.
It’s no secret that the concept of a walled garden is at the core of every major software companies strategy, and they are built around it to generate and sustain a network effect. Any Apple user knows first hand the way you get trapped within the ecosystem, because of both the way their products, like an iPhone and Macbook interact together, but also because of the friction that is introduced when using a non Apple product. This gives Apple incredible power as you see with the App Store, allowing them to control who can enter, and who cannot. It also creates the need for new apple specific products in order for you to maintain a consistent user interface, which is all part of the walled garden approach. The same is true for Google, Microsoft, Facebook and most others. Think about it. Many people use social media platforms like they are the internet. These platforms are masterful at keeping you inside of their gardens, and do everything they can to extend the amount of time you stay within their walls. If it were up to them, you would never leave.
Fundamentally they do this by designing incentives. Presumably they try to add value, by making their products as good as possible, so you simply want to use them over others. It would seem the case, they also allow a certain amount of friction to exist in other areas to detract you from exploring other options, and exiting their ecosystem. Apple software interfaces as I mentioned is one of the best examples of this, where many people fear having to ‘learn‘ how to navigate a different companies interface and migrating their images, contacts, messages etc. Thus, due to the incentives, they stay inside the walls. The reality is that as humans, we’re (in most cases) lazy animals, and a dominant majority of people will follow the path of least resistance. Thus we remain within their walls. And over time, the walls begin to look more like those of a cage than a garden.
In the same way that these software giants create walled gardens and work to keep us inside them, so to do governments and central banks with the creation of the political fiat monetary systems. Central banks issue money, and government insist this money be accepted. The fiat system is a classic example of a walled garden. Where the difference lies between software companies and governments/central banks, is that outside the walls of the fiat garden, are armed soldiers. Software giants while they do everything to incentivise you to stay inside, and prey on all your vulnerabilities to make it as unattractive to leave as possible. They cannot stop you, and if you exercise your agency, you can easily leave and never return.
Not so with the Fiat walled garden though. If you try to leave and venture off to explore outside the walls or even to explore a different walled garden, they want to know where you have been, the reasons for leaving, and every possible detail about your interactions while you were gone. To the fiat masters, it is their business. You are not simply free to explore.
The fiat standard is a walled garden, and unlike software companies it is one you are kept within by decree. Which is by force. Outside of this garden is the open, permissionless, abundant environment of bitcoin. The fiat masters are counting on the height of the walls, and men with guns on the other side being able to perturb you from scaling the walls, and exploring the vast abundant land outside of them. What they weren’t counting on however, was the invisible force of bitcoin being able to penetrate and then dissolve these walls, and flourish both inside the garden and outside of it. This invisible force is everywhere and it is nowhere, and it is the key to an abundant future. With bitcoin there are no walls. No borders. The very notion of a walled garden ceases to be possible. Or conversely, it is the ultimate garden with which no walls exist.
Wishing you all well.
Hope you have a great weekend. I’ll talk to you next week.
