First Edition of "Advice Nobody Asked Me For" for the Polkadot Ecosystem

Ecosystem
1

Nobody asked for this advice. I’m writing it because I have some free time and, for some strange reason, I’d still like to see Polkadot succeed.

That said, I’m not even sure who I should be addressing here, Parity, W3F, or PCF? I just hope that at least one of the ideas I’m sharing reaches someone who has the ability to make things happen.

Lately, I’ve noticed the same pattern repeating itself with the launch of Polkadot Products Devnet (and, by the way, congratulations on this milestone).

I see new applications being launched. Developers are experimenting. There are already websites where we can discover these apps (which, by the way, reminds me of those directories that used to list every parachain).

But do you know what I don’t see?

The one thing I need to see, as desperately as someone stranded in the desert needs a drop of water.

Real use cases.

The next part is best described as a dream.

In my dream, every app creator has a small community, a handful of followers, or at least that childhood friend who never leaves their side. They show people what their app does, why it’s useful, what makes it special, and how to get the most out of it. They encourage others to experiment. They explain everything, every button, every click, every step of the process.

Then those people go out and do the same for others because the app helped them build something interesting or solve a real problem.

Suddenly, everywhere I look in Web3, people are talking about the incredible things they’re building with Polkadot Products Devnet. Everyone is experimenting because they’re constantly seeing examples from other users who have already shown them exactly what to do.

But wait…

I just woke up.

None of that is happening.

The applications exist. They’re being built.

Yet not even their own creators are telling me what I can actually do with them, what problems they solve, or why I should spend even five minutes trying them.

So I do what most people probably do.

I keep scrolling.

2

Your thoughts align with mine…
I’m not a programmer—not in the slightest. I’ve been watching people on X who aren’t programmers either, yet they’ve launched small apps on the Devnet using Claude. As far as I can tell, none of the apps have smart contracts yet—which is unusual for crypto. It doesn’t make much sense anyway, since it’s a testnet and no token value is meant to be transferred. You could potentially implement it experimentally using testnet tokens, but what for?
Anyway, after using AI to compose music, create short videos, and write a book, I thought: why not? And sure enough, programming an app turns out to be almost easier than any of the other things. I’ve created two so far.
But now, regarding my thoughts: even if we had thousands of these apps, who would use them? And more importantly, where does the value creation come from? Sure, creation will likely be paid for in DOT later on. But will interest persist once experimenting suddenly costs money? We’ll see.
@lilymendzdev What kind of app do you feel is missing? What would be a genuine use case? And what’s stopping you from bringing the idea to life? It’s actually quite simple.

3

I’ve been looking through the published dev net apps, as well. On the surface, they’re mostly experiments, placeholders, and existing projects deployed to a new location.

I’ve been playing with a NetHack clone that had existing Asset hub integration and a manual webRTC connection for P2P co-op and trying to add context-aware rails for polkadot app game sessions and event signing. Nothing immediately ‘useful’ but a learning opportunity, nonetheless. Other projects I’ve been toying with may be decidedly more useful, but I’m trying to be more critical of the privacy exposures

My immediate takeaway so far is not that there needs to be a reason to spend tokens, or that there’s a lack of products selling things, but rather the opposite.

I deployed a codebase onto an outwardly facing, accessible network that is able to provide a non-token-holding service without the need to register an email or sign up for anything. And it will stay there as long as I renew the lease. That’s meaningful, although maybe not exciting.

PAS is still needed under the hood, and it seems there’s a lot of new tools which each do something interesting, but there seems to be a purposeful step away from paradigm of needing tokens to interact with the systems as a user.

Perhaps in a way we are so conditioned in the need to buy something, we need to re-appreciate the act of using something. Just my thoughts.

4

I’m not sure if I’m understanding you correctly, but regarding what I wrote earlier:
Of course, it is excellent—and indeed special—to be able to operate as a user here without a token. That specific Web2-like feel was the goal.
My question concerns the following scenario on Polkadot: As a developer, it ought to be possible to use a paid service that generates value for me, even if the end user doesn’t pay for it directly. Otherwise, I’d be paying for something that offers me no benefit. That isn’t the case with the current apps I’ve looked at. Alternatively, I suppose I could publish apps that provide conventional blockchain applications via smart contracts. I’m not sure how—or if—it’s possible to derive value here without a native token serving as a mechanism for value creation. The ideal scenario would likely be for DOT (or stablecoins) to serve as a universal vehicle for representing any form of value—benefiting the ecosystem through token burning, the developer who receives a share, and the user through smart interaction. In any case, I’m eager to discover the first app that generates value for the creator, appeals to users, and—as a side effect—creates value for Polkadot.

5

I think I understand your point, that you would be interested in using products which create value for you. That might be monetary value through purchasing or trading, or non-monetary value through a service like facebook/twitter/google maps/whatsapp.

I believe an initial starting point might be in providing alternatives to existing services on Polkadot. Two potential value-generating projects I’ve been tinkering with on Asset Hub are:

Fare - a p2p open DoorDash clone to mitigate trust requirements between customers, venues, and delivery providers. (Please note, currently registering as a venue places GPS coordinates on chain to be publicly available) I’m currently exploring retooling with some of the products shipped with the dev net for better integration and enhanced security (e.g. statement store topic subscriptions for localized order queues instead of per-venue public order logs). I think being able to privately set your own delivery fee rate for cryptographic proof of delivery of food/parcel is valuable, especially if necessary system costs can be minimized.

DATUM - ad network to connect advertisers’ products, on publisher websites, to end users and provide a clear value flow of the advertiser spends to the users. Imagine using a website or application with banner ads or sponsored content, acknowledging that you saw the ad, and receiving compensation for your attention. It acts as an extension of the Brave Rewards model to be controllable and configurable by publishers and users who host and view the content. In theory, a product could generate ad revenue without being a user data harvester or otherwise provide anything other than website which users visit without being filtered through Brave as the global approver.

I might be inclined to use or pay for transaction fees for a product if I knew I was also rewarded for simply visiting that product, i.e. social media/message boards.

It is also possible to monetize systems without directly charging the general public. On my list of things to do is integrating a mock manufacturing execution system/SCADA via Ethernet/IP, CIP, OpenProtocol, Modbus, and OPC. This could be sold to businesses and manufacturers as a service package, annual subscription, or integration support to provide persistent material tracking and quality reporting. In effect, a client with smoldot could become an alternative to a SCADA dashboard system like Ignition or DeltaV which could run either on the public blockchain, or an internally managed system.

I intend to experiment with these ideas further and see how they might fit within the unified environment. I’m not looking to extract maximum value from anything, so if any of these or other services were to pick up traction then a minimal dynamic service fee to cover operating costs may be sufficient. I like the idea of optimizing intangible value of stakeholders rather than maximizing value for stockholders.