The Hunter Economy: Building a Better Reading Experience with Matter

The Hunter Economy: Building a Better Reading Experience with Matter

In a world of abundance, scarcity evolves. While pre-internet scarcity was about a physically constrained, or otherwise limited, number of resources, post-internet scarcity is about separating signal from noise. Financial capital is easier to accrue than social capital. So when you spend your social capital, it means a lot. It’s this “belief capital” that matters disproportionately, and it matters across more domains than just careers & angel investing. Enter “The Hunter Economy” — a whole class of startups that'll be built to incentivize & reward early adopters both economically & socially. With crypto involved, you could also be financially incentivized to be a curator. This is the Hunter Economy: a series of products that will enable people to gain status as hunters and curators, gaining social and financial capital in their favorite people, businesses, and ideas in the process.

One aspect of the Hunter Economy is the need for a better reading experience. The term “reading online” really consists of several behaviors: deciding what to read, the act of reading, and what you do with your knowledge after you read. The first generation of read-it-later apps don’t have a lot of smarts built into them. For example, they don’t help with prioritization, resurfacing, or decay. Trust is one of the most important factors when deciding what to read, and people trust people. When we started Matter, we made the decision to elevate writers as first-class citizens in our system. Good curation is incredibly valuable, especially as a way of finding gems that are often overlooked by engagement-based algorithms.

The reading experience should also prioritize ease of use and functionality. It’s a better experience if you can draw a highlight with a single press-and-drag. In general, our information consumption is heavily biased toward what’s new, but the bias toward it is too strong. We need to figure out how to deliver older content that's relevant and manageable. The design space is large, and it's a fun problem to work on. Additionally, audio has become an increasingly important mode of consumption. We added a feature called “audio highlights” that lets you highlight as you listen without opening your phone.

To further enhance the reading experience, we introduced the concept of minimaps. If you two-finger tap an article, we show you a miniaturized version, so you can scan headers and quickly navigate. Inspired by video games and code editors, this feature is neat on mobile and promises to be even neater on desktop web.

At the core of Matter's user base are active readers who are intentional about what they read and proactively curate their information diets. They have favorite writers and subscribe to newsletters, often frequenting obscure blogs. The goal of Matter is to increase the ROI of reading, helping people get more from the time they invest in reading — more insight, more knowledge, and more thrill.

In conclusion, the Hunter Economy is introducing a new wave of startups that incentivize and reward early adopters socially and economically. Within this economy, the need for a better reading experience arises. Matter aims to address this need by prioritizing trust, elevating writers, and incorporating features like intuitive highlighting, audio integration, and minimaps. By focusing on the needs that won't change in the future, Matter aims to provide a counterweight to the bias toward new content and enhance the overall reading experience.

Actionable Advice:

1. Prioritize trust: When deciding what to read, seek recommendations from trusted sources, such as curated newsletters or recommendations from people you admire.
2. Embrace diverse content: Don't limit yourself to just new articles or popular trends. Explore older, lesser-known content to discover hidden gems and gain unique insights.
3. Optimize your reading experience: Use tools and platforms that offer features like intuitive highlighting, audio integration, and easy navigation to enhance your reading experience and maximize the value you derive from the content you consume.