Pseudonymous Economy: What It Is And How Does It Help Professionals?
By Palak Dogra -
Pseudonyms are quite prevalent nowadays. But we first got to know pseudonyms when we discovered that most writers avoid using their real names, and instead use another name and create their identities.
Now with the usage of social media, a lot of people refrain from using their original name on their social media accounts and instead use pseudonyms.
Balaji Srinivas, angel investor and author of The Network State , puts it as, “Pseudonyms are interesting because they’re not your real name, but they are persistent… and you can build up a reputation on them.”
Most people confuse pseudonymity with anonymity. However, it is not the same as pseudonyms have an identity and reputation that is followed throughout their interactions. Also, they are not forced but rather chosen by the person themselves.
Talking about the pseudonymous economy, Balaji said, “The pseudonymous economy is the foundation for muscular classical liberalism that is capable of standing up in today’s information environment.”
He says that a pseudonymous economy is necessary as “it allows for freedom after the speech, defending you against disruptions to your social networks in the age of online mobs. Just as your bank account is your stored wealth, your real name is your stored reputation. Pseudonymity insures against unjustified debit to that reputation.”
How Does It Help Professionals?
Originally started as a Reddit page, and now a Discord server, “Corporate Chat India” is a community that allows working professionals to give and seek advice. Today, the community has more than 10,000 professionals.
In the community, they discuss their career, salary, and work culture of their firms. The Discord server, Corporate Chat India has its own Twitter Account and an app known as Grapevine. Every user is known by their username (pseudonym) and the firm they work at.
Dharamadhikari said , “It is not possible for professionals to have such conversations on a platform like LinkedIn where everyone is watching you, and people only end up self-promoting there. We wanted to create a platform where professionals from diverse sectors in India can come to have real conversations with each other. We currently have users from 700+ companies.”
On the server and app, users get to discuss questions such as “How much does an engineer at Amazon earn?” or “What is the Work culture at Swiggy?” Also, in recent months, when renowned companies were laying off their employees, there were threads on that too.
Hence, the pseudonymous economy helps the users to discuss matters that they can’t discuss normally and it also prevents discrimination against people. Also, it stops an individual’s ideas and opinions from getting canceled as there is pseudonymity.
Originally published at https://edtimes.in on January 14, 2023.