Why Web2 Is Dying: The Rise of Ownership Economies

What if the future of business isn't built on customers, but on owners?

In this episode of the Weekly ROAR Podcast, Dustin Hedrick and Brandon Billings explore one of the biggest shifts happening in technology, business, and digital communities: the rise of ownership economies. As trust in traditional Web2 platforms declines, a new model is emerging—one where users become stakeholders, communities become economic engines, and participation creates value for everyone involved.

From AI agents and blockchain infrastructure to DAOs, digital ownership, and community-driven growth, this conversation breaks down why the next generation of companies won't simply attract audiences—they'll build economies.

• Why the traditional Web2 model is losing trust and cultural relevance
• How ownership economies transform users into contributors, participants, and stakeholders
• The role of AI, blockchain, and decentralized infrastructure in the future of business

Weekly ROAR Podcast with Dustin Hedrick & Brandon Billings
Sponsored by https://www.r0ar.io/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to your weekly roar, where we break down what actually matters, cut through the noise, and give you something you can use right now. I'm Dustin, we're here with my best friend of the world, Brandon. And today we're diving into a big one. Why Web2 is dying and why ownership economies are rising. Now I want to be clear, when I say Web2 is dying, I don't mean websites disappear tomorrow. That's not what's going on. I don't mean social platforms vanish overnight. I don't mean the internet you use every day just shuts off. That would be ridiculous. What I do mean is this the old model where platforms own the audience, companies extract the value, users create the energy, and almost none of the upside flows back to the people who made the network valuable. That model's breaking. It really is. And what's replacing it is bigger than crypto hype, bigger than a token launch, bigger than a marketing trend or AI. It's a shift toward ownership economies. It's a shift where customers become partners, users become stakeholders, communities become growth engines, and eventually AI agents become economic actors inside those networks, too. It's coming. If you've ever wondered why people are tired of platforms and tired of being targeted and tired of being tracked and tired of being sold to, and why the next generation of companies will have to build differently, this one is for you. So let's get into it. Brandon, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

This week's Spark is simple. People are done being the product. What's at the core of it? For years, Web 2 gave us amazing tools: social media, search, cloud software, marketplaces, streaming, creator platforms, online communities. It connected the world. It lowered the cost of publishing, and it created entire industries. But there was a trade. The web 2 bargain was you bring the content, you bring the attention, you bring the network, you bring the data, we give you access. For a while that felt like enough. But you could post for free, build an audience, sell a product, start a movement, launch a brand. But over time, people started to notice something. They built the audience, but the platform owned the reach. They created the content, but the algorithm owned the distribution. They generated the data, but the company owned the value. They helped grow the network, but the cap table stayed closed. That's the tension. And that tension is why Web2 is not necessarily disappearing, but it is losing cultural trust. Because people are asking a new question. If I helped build the value, why don't I share in the upside? That question is the beginning of the ownership economy. Now, this matters for companies because the older customer relationship is not enough anymore. For decades, businesses talked about their target audience. And just listen to that phrase for a second. Target audience. It sounds like something you aim at. It sounds like people are objects in a funnel. We targeted them, we captured them, we converted them, we retained them. That language tells you everything about the old model. But the next model is different. The next model says don't target people, invite them. Don't capture attention, earn participation. Don't just convert users, create owners. Don't just build a brand, build an economy around the brand. That's the move. And blockchain gave us the first real infrastructure for this. Not because every business needs a meme coin. Not because that's actually kind of funny. Not because every brand needs to slap an NFT on something, but because blockchain introduced a new primitive into the internet. Programmable ownership. That means digital ownership can move, it can be verified, it can be shared, it can be governed, it can be rewarded, it can be embedded into the experience from day one. And when you combine that with AI, especially agentic AI, now you're not just talking about people clicking buttons. You're talking about AI agents helping people create, operate, market, transact, vote, coordinate, and build value inside digital economies. That is where this gets big. Because the company of the future may not look like a traditional company. It may look more like a network. A network of founders, customers, contributors, creators, investors, operators, agents, and communities all participating in the same value loop. And that's why Roar's perspective matters here. Roar is building towards this Web Next idea, AI powered, decentralized business infrastructure. The idea is not just let's make software easier. The idea is what happens when launching, funding, operating, and scaling a business becomes radically more accessible, and ownership is built in from the beginning. That's not a small shift. That's a completely different economic imagination. So our quick take here's the thing that most people get wrong. They think ownership economies are only about tokens, but they're not. Tokens are one tool, blockchain is one layer, DAOs are one structure. But the real shift is psychological and economic. People do not want to be passive consumers anymore. They want a stake, they want a voice, they want proof, they want participation, they want alignment. And companies that understand that are going to build stronger communities than companies that keep treating people like traffic, because traffic leaves. Owners stay. Community compounds, participation spreads, and shared upside creates a type of loyalty that ads can't buy. Before we get into the next part of this, this might be a good moment to grab a coffee or reset for a second, because what we're about to get into goes a layer deeper.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Because the rise of ownership economies is not just a web3 conversation, it's a business model conversation, it's a labor conversation, it's an AI conversation, it's a brand conversation. Honestly, it's a trust conversation. The old internet was built around scale. How many users can we acquire? How much time can we capture? How much data can we collect? Uh, how many ads can we serve? How much can we automate? How much can we optimize? That model created giants, but it also created exhaustion. So people are overwhelmed by content right now. They're starting to distrust platforms, they're skeptical of brands, they know when they're being manipulated by an algorithm. Heck, kids even know when something is AI generated without a little AI-generated label. They're like, that's AI. They know when a company says community but means audience we can monetize. Let's be real. And now AI is pouring gasoline on this because with AI, content becomes infinite, ads become infinite, bots become infinite, personalized persuasion becomes infinite, synthetic media becomes infinite. So the question becomes: in a world where anything can be generated, what becomes more valuable? It's coming. I'm telling you, and that goes to what we've been saying over and over and over. Listen, we've written the white paper on it before anybody else did. I've heard nobody talking about pot but us. I'm just kidding. Proof of truth got your attention, didn't I? Proof of truth, uh, which is what we're saying is the new valuable proof. But trust, proof, identity, ownership, human connection, and shared incentive. That's the new premium. That's why ownership matters. When someone's just a customer, they might buy once. When someone is a fan, they might even share. When someone is a community member, they may engage. But when someone's an owner, contributor, or economic participant, their relationship to the brand changes entirely. They're no longer outside the company looking in. They're a part of the value creation loop. They can mean that can actually mean a lot of different things to us. It can mean token-based rewards, it can mean community equity models where legally appropriate. It can mean revenue sharing pools, it can mean Dow governance, it can mean creator royalties, it can be customer advisory councils and real influence in them. It can mean loyalty programs that are actually portable assets. It can mean users owning their data and choosing how agents use it. Now, that one is a key one I love. It can mean AI agents working on behalf of individuals, not just platforms, which is what we're developing. And the important point is not that every company copies the same structure. That's not what we're after. The point is that companies need to stop thinking of users as endpoints and start thinking of them as nodes in the economy. Because the next great brands will not be the ones with the loudest ads. They'll be the ones with the strongest aligned networks. Let's bring in the AI piece. So before I even say this next piece, remember AI is not going to look at your advertisements. They don't need them. So when AI is strolling the internet, they're going to be looking at things very differently. And believe me, Google's already scared to death of what that means for the death of advertisements. AI is moving fast, but the business impact is uneven. A lot of companies have AI tools now, but many are still stuck in pilot mode. They have experiments, dashboards, co-pilots, and demos. I mean, heck, what them calls their AI copilot because it's just a demo. But not always, but not always do they have deep workflow transformation. That's something we build deeply into. And that matters because agentic AI is not just another productivity tool. It's not just something put to work. Agenic AI means systems that can take goals, plan steps, use tools, coordinate workflows, and act with some level of autonomy, with as much autonomy as they can be allowed without breaking things. And if they do have the autonomy to break something, they fix it after they break it and then make it better and create a new rail. Is that possible? I could say hell yeah, because I'm doing it. But I'll come back to this. That changes the shape of work entirely. Here's the key if AI agents are only owned and directed by centralized platforms, we repeat the web 2 mistake. And that's where we're at right now. We really are repeating a web 2 mistake by giving the new big players all the chips, whether it's your Claude or your OpenAI or even your Grok. So if AI agents are controlled only by those centralized platforms, well, there's a Web3 problem, you know, ready for the making. I mean, honestly, that's centralized. Centralized is a big no-no for us. Even in our own, you know, politic, we want to have it decentralized. We get a future where a handful of platforms control the agents, the data, the rails, the distribution, and the economic upside. And listen, they act like they're playing with everyone because they're open source, but what they're really doing is they're data grabbing and extracting at a massive level all the value they can before they lock you out. That's not liberation. That is web two with smarter machines. The better future is different. The better future is where individuals and companies can deploy agents that work for them, represent them, protect their data, negotiate for them, help them build, help them earn, help them govern, and help them participate in digital economies. I can say that because at this moment I run up to ready for this 90 to 200 agents daily in all those ways. That's why ownership economies matter so much for the agenc future. Because agents need identity, agents need permissions, agents need wallets, agents need reputation, agents need rules, agents need access to economic networks. And before I even say this next piece, agents are not creative apart from oracles, and those oracles must and always will be human. Blockchain is one of the clearest ways to give digital actors a verifiable economic layer and more. Again, not hype, not hype. We're talking about infrastructure, infra. An agent can help launch a business and it needs to know ready, it needs to know really who owns what, who has permission to do what, where does value flow, who approves changes, what is the treasury, what is the governance structure, what is the brand identity, what is the market strategy, what assets exist, what rights are attached to them. Trust me, I know this one because I built it. That is why the combination of AI and blockchain keeps coming back. AI creates acceleration, blockchain creates verification and ownership, proof of truth, centralized moment in time, a locking in of rails, a locking in of rules that exist ledgerized with decentralized agreement on that truth. Very important. AI can go accelerate even more, but blockchain will always verify and own. Together, they create the foundation for a new kind of business system. And this is where Roar and Businessbox, as well as a number of other things you ain't heard about that we're already building, like our agentic launch pad, fit into the conversation. The promise of business in a box is not just that someone can launch a digital business faster, for you know, perspective. The bigger promise is that the rails of entrepreneurship become more accessible to everyone. We're removing every bit of the friction we can so that you're not having to go and find how do I sign up for an LLC in Wyoming? What's the best state or country to do it in? How do I set up a DAO? How do I do all the infrastructure? How do I, what, what chain's the best? How do you do the smart contracts? What templates should I trust? Are there bugs in this thing? All of it and more. Brand identity, market strategy, Dow deployment, treasury systems, tokenization, visibility, funding, growth infrastructure. These pieces start to come together into something that a founder, creator, local operator, or community can actually use and make it all the way to a platform that can get them funded in minutes. That spreads economic opportunity outward to the fringes. And that's the goal. I've done a lot of work in a lot of different countries, Asia, Africa, um, Latin America. And I've done a lot of work in places where people can't get access to resources, funding, finance, capital, or even structure for business. And we're we're just removing all of those, all that friction, all those problems, all those barriers, and bringing it to everyone at fractions of pennies. So as that economic opportunity spreads outward, that means this fringes piece is taken care of. Because in the old economy, access was concentrated. You needed capital, you needed technical teams, you needed legal structure, you needed distribution, you needed gatekeepers, you needed a network, you needed permission. But in the ownership economy, the goal is to push more of those tools to the edge. So let's get this straight. It's going to go to the solo builder. It's going to go to the local business. It's going to go to the creator. It's going to go to the community organizer. It's going to go to the niche expert. That's you. It's going to go to the group of people who see an opportunity before the institutions do. How many times have you had that happen in your life where you saw something, you didn't know what to do next, you had no help, and someone else, bigger and stronger with more money, got there faster, and you never made it to the shark tank. That's where explosive social impact can actually happen. Not because everybody becomes a billionaire. That's not the point. Maybe it is for you. But the point is for us that more people can participate in value creation earlier, more transparently, and with more upside than they had before. We're removing the barriers that stopped us along the way. That's a healthier economy. That's a more distributed uh community or economy, that's a more resilient economy. So here's our hot seat question for this podcast. This is the question you got to ask yourself. Is your company building an audience or is it building an economy? Because those are not the same thing. An audience listens, an economy participates. An audience can be rented from a platform, an economy has internal energy. An audience waits for content, an economy creates value. An audience is measured in impressions. An economy is measured in contribution, trust, ownership, and compounding growth. So if you're a founder, marketer, builder, creator, investor, operator, ask yourself: where are people already creating value around what we do? Are they referring others? Are they giving feedback? Are they making content? Are they building on top of our tools? Are they organizing the community? Are they educating others? Are they improving the product? Are they bringing capital, attention, credibility, or distribution? And then ask the harder question: are we rewarding that value fairly? Because if the answer is no, someone else eventually will. And this is the real talk moment as we start to bring this thing home. Let's be honest for a second. A lot of companies say they love community, but what they really love is free labor. Trust me. Google, OpenAI, and others that we partner with now have built off of my back. WordPress as well. There's a lot. Facebook. They love customers promoting the brand. They love creators making content. They love users training the algorithms. They love fans defending them online. They love people giving feedback, writing reviews, creating tutorials, inviting friends, and building culture around the product. But then when the value shows up, the upside only flows one way. That's the part that has to change. The companies that win the next era will be the ones bold enough to say our users are not just users, our customers are not just customers. Our community is not just a marketing channel. Our clients are not just accounts. They're part of the value system. We see them. We see you. We see you. Roar. We see you. And when you do that right, your brand identity becomes stronger because it's no longer just what you say about yourself. It becomes what the community believes, builds, repeats, and owns with you. And that's a different level of brand power altogether. So before we land this, take a second to think about how this actually shows up in your world because this next piece is where it all starts to connect.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

So it's time for the roar. Now let's bring this home. What should companies actually do? Because it's easy to say build an ownership economy. It's harder to change how a company thinks. So here are the shifts. Shift one, stop thinking funnels. Start thinking in loops. The funnel says awareness, interest, conversion, retention. The model is useful, but it's incomplete. An ownership economy works more like a loop. People discover the brand, they use the product, they contribute value, they earn status, access, ownership rewards, or influence. That makes them more invested. Their participation attracts others, the network gets stronger, the brand becomes more trusted, the economy expands. That is the loop. And AI agents can make that loop faster. Agents can help onboard new users, agents can personalize education. Agents can match contributors with opportunities. Agents can summarize governance issues. Agents can help creators package content. Agents can help small businesses launch campaigns. Agents can help tokenized communities coordinate without needing everyone in meetings all day. But the loop only works if the incentives are aligned. If the agent is just helping the company extract more value, people will feel it. If the agent is helping participants create, earn, own, and grow, people will trust it. Shift number two, design participation before monetization. Most companies ask, how do we monetize this audience? The better question is, how do we make participation valuable? Because if participation is valuable, monetization becomes healthier. Think about it. What if your best customers could become verified ambassadors? What if your early users could receive governance rights over certain product decisions? What if your creators could earn from the growth they helped generate? What if your clients could participate in innovation councils that actually shape the roadmap? What if your loyalty program was not just points trapped in a database, but portable digital value? What if your AI agents could help customers find the best role inside the ecosystem? Buyer, contributor, referrer, educator, investor, creator, operator. That is a very different way to think about growth. You are not extracting attention. You are activating ownership. And then shift number three, build with transparency. Ownership economies collapse without trust. If people are going to participate, they need to understand the rules. What do they own? What do they not own? What can change? Who decides? Where does the money go? What rights are real? What is symbolic? What is legally binding? What is just access? What is governance? What is financial upside? This is where companies have to be mature. You cannot use ownership language casually. You cannot promise upside. You cannot legally or operationally support. You cannot use tokenization as a gimmick. The future is not about pretending every customer is a shareholder. The future is about designing honest participation models where value, access, influence, and rewards match the contribution. That could be simple. It could start with community rewards. It could start with transparent referral economics. It could start with creator licensing. It could start with member-owned data vaults. It could start with token gated governance over a specific part of the ecosystem. It could start with a DAO for a project, fund, brand initiative, or local economic network. The key is make the value loop real. Shift number four, treat AI agents as participants in the operating system. This is the part people are still underestimating. AI agents will not just be chatbots on websites. They will become operators. They will help run workflows, they will coordinate tasks, they will manage customer journeys, they will handle research, generate brand assets, monitor markets, support community governance. They will help founders build faster. But the question is, who do these agents serve? Do they serve the platform, the company, the customer, community, the owner? In web two, most intelligence served the platform. Recommendation engines serve platform engagement. Ad systems serve platform monetization. Algorithms served platform control. In Web Next, we need agents that serve aligned ownership networks. That means a customer's agent may negotiate on behalf of the customer. A founder's agent may help launch a business. A DAO's agent may help summarize proposals and flag risks. A brand's agent may help identify which community members are creating the most value and deserve recognition or rewards. A creator's agent may manage licensing, distribution, and collaborations. This is where blockchain becomes useful again. Because if agents are going to participate in economic systems, they need verifiable identity, wallets, permissions, audit trails, and rules. That does not mean everything belongs on-chain, but it does mean ownership and coordination need a trust layer. So shift number five, move from brand identity to shared identity. This may be the biggest one. In the old model, a company built a brand and pushed it outward. Logo messaging, campaign, positioning, content, ads. In the new model, brand identity is co-created. The company starts the signal. The community strengthens it, the participants spread it, the owners defend it, the agency uh amplify it. The economy gives it motion. That is explosive when it works. Because people do not just say, I like this company. They say, I am a part of this. That sentence is powerful. I am a part of this. That is what sports teams understand. That is what great movements understand. That is what open source communities understand. That is what the best creator communities understand. And that is what the next generation of companies has to understand. Your strongest brand asset may not be your product. It may be the number of people who feel like your growth is connected to their growth. And that's the ownership economy. So, one minute insight, here's what this really means. Web 2 is built around platforms capturing value from networks. Ownership economies are built around networks sharing value with participants. AI makes this urgent because AI will multiply content, automation, and competition. The companies that keep treating people like targets will become easier to ignore. The companies that turn people into partners will become harder to replace. Blockchain matters because ownership needs proof. DAOs matter because participation needs governance. Tokens can matter because incentives need rails. AI agents matter because coordination needs scale. And the companies that combine those pieces responsibly, not as hype, but as infrastructure, will build the next generation of digital economies. So this week's roar line, if there's one thing to take away from this, it is this. The future will not belong to companies that own the audience. It will belong to companies that help the audience become owners. That's the roar. Because Web2 taught us how to scale attention. Web Next is going to teach us how to scale ownership. And the difference is massive. Attention can be bought, ownership has to be earned. Attention is temporary, ownership compounds. Attention follows the algorithm. Ownership builds the economy. So for companies, this is the challenge. Stop asking, how do we get more people to consume what we make? Start asking how do we help more people participate in what we're building? And for individuals, this is the opportunity. Stop thinking of yourself as only as a customer. You are a builder. You are a contributor. You are a node in the network. You are a participant in the economy. And with the right tools, the right agents, and the right ownership rails, you can help create value and share in the upside. That is why this matters. That is why the next version of business will look different. And that is why the rise of ownership economies is not a side story. It may be the story.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

You know, on that note, I'll say this: I've spent a lot of my history in web development and creative work, training companies and individuals who are entrepreneurs in how to reach out on social media and utilize the algorithms and the communities that were available to them to grow their brand or their business. And I've helped thousands get successful in that space. No one even knew what I was. I was just a little cyber ninja. But here's the deal. Here's the deal at the end of the day. I've said this over and over and over. It's all about creating massive value and showing up for other people, showing up for them on their best and worst days or whatever, and being in their world and giving them before you ask anything from them. Give three times what you ask. And if you take that logic and you realize you are not a consumer any longer, you're a creative. And you apply that same logic to the businesses and the platforms of our day, you will realize very quickly that it's all extractive behavior. And it's time for you to be empowered to know that you are creative. You have value. And as you bring that value to market, it is very necessary for you to receive a reward. Jim Rohn always said that you don't have to worry about how much you need as long as you make sure that other people get all that they need. Or you don't have to worry about getting what you want as long as you make sure that others get what they need. Somewhere in this world, there are amazing creatives that have been pushed down, hidden, and forgotten. And we're talking to you today. We want you here. Time to show up and be that creative and bring your awesomeness to market. So that's this week's Roar. If this hit for you, share it with someone who needs to hear it, especially somebody building a company, growing a community, launching a brand, or trying to understand where AI and Web3 are really going. And make sure you've tapped in so you don't miss what's coming next. Follow us here, follow us on our platforms, hit the like button, give us some comments and interaction. It helps us. We've got more conversations, more clarity, and more real insight coming your way. Be sure to follow our show on the platform where you found us. And if you like our podcast, rate and review it. It helps the value as well as the algorithms that make it easier for us to be found. We need your help on that. We will always ask. So share this, share this, share this. And until next time, stay sharp, stay curious, and keep moving forward. This is your weekly roar. Bye y'all. Thanks everybody. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Thank you for tuning in to your weekly roar podcast. See the show notes to learn more about the topics in today's episode, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss out on the latest high impact trends and strategies shaping the future of decentralized tech.