Read on Twitter
Thinking about the cost-benefit analysis of growing an anonymous account vs. real-name account.
When you start an anon account you are accountable to no one. You can say whatever you want without having to worry about whether or not that fits the image your friends and family have of you. Whether or not it would ruffle any feathers you don't want ruffled.
More importantly for some people, you don't have to worry about an employer seeing it. You can say whatever you want and not worry about your income stream being shut off.
As an anon account you can go about making friends and having a great time. There's no question about that - I see many people doing that today.
But - and I'm just speaking for myself here - speaking freely and making friends online is not the only goal. I want to do those things anyway because it brings joy and fulfillment to my life, but I also want to build on top of that.
I want to use social networks to open up professional opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I want to find amazing people to work with. The problem is the economy as it stands today doesn't really support fully pseudonymous work.
I'm sure you can find gig work doing web development or design or digital marketing where you don't have to give your IRL info. You can get paid in Bitcoin or another crypto of your choosing.
At the moment, however, these opportunities are fringe and probably don't reach the top of the pay scale.
If you want to do high-leverage work, like a salaried long-term engineering position, or starting a company, you have to give up your identity. Not to the internet, but to your co-workers.
A high-trust environment is crucial for doing long-term impactful work, and that means knowing who you're working with.
What does this have to do with anon account vs. real-name account? The question is: Can you build up a serious reputation as an anon account and then leverage that into impactful work (founding a company; long-term high pay salaried work) where people know your real name?
I think the answer is, fortunately, yes. The public spaces where you operate as an anon account will have private offshoots where the level of trust is different and you can be open to others with your IRL identity.
Basically Twitter DMs, private chat rooms in Signal, invite-only Discords, etc.
To get into one of those more exclusive spaces, you will first have to have a reputation in the commons of not being an asshole. Then you can start to build relationships in the wings with a smaller set of people who seem to align with you.
For example, DM'ing someone who you just had an interesting thread conversation with. Now you have a private space with this person to be a little bit more open and build a little bit more trust.
Do this with enough people over a long enough time period, and you have yourself a high-trust environment where each member is willing to offer other members economic opportunity.
That could be in the form of a job recommendation: "hey XXX my friend's company is looking for a backend engineer. They're working on some really cool stuff and I think you'd be a great fit. Lmk if you want me to refer you."
Could also be starting something from the ground up: "hey XXX, we talk all the time about how VSCode is annoying, what if we just built our own IDE?"
At this point, I feel like there is enough trust that sharing your IRL identities is not a big deal because you know the information will stay with that person.
I like this model because it lets you
- talk in public about whatever you want, without repercussions
- find people who are closely aligned with your values
- control who you reveal your IRL identity to
- find high-value economic opportunities
- talk in public about whatever you want, without repercussions
- find people who are closely aligned with your values
- control who you reveal your IRL identity to
- find high-value economic opportunities
