In tokens we trust? communicative power, participation, and governance in decentralized social media

Abstract

Introduction:

This study examines how decentralized social media platforms are reshaping participatory communication and platform governance in contemporary digital environments. Drawing on a socio-technical perspective, the analysis explores how blockchain infrastructures, token-based economies, and community-driven rule-making reconfigure established models of media control, participation, and authority.

Methods:

Using a qualitative mixed-method approach that combines a structured review of prior research with expert interviews from the Web3 ecosystem, the study develops an integrative analytical framework that captures the evolving relationships between infrastructure, participation, and governance in decentralized platforms.

Results:

By conceptualizing decentralization as a transformation in communicative power rather than a purely technical shift, the paper shows how user agency, trust, and visibility are negotiated through programmable infrastructures and collective governance mechanisms. While decentralized systems promise greater autonomy and transparency, the findings also highlight persistent tensions related to usability, equity, and regulatory ambiguity.

Discussion:

By situating these tensions within broader debates on platform governance and digital communication, the study contributes to communication scholarship on emerging media systems and offers insights into the societal implications of decentralized digital infrastructures.

1 Introduction

Digital technological innovation is reshaping contemporary social life, embedding information systems into everyday practices and reconfiguring how people communicate publicly, organize collectively, and assert agency. This transformation is evident in the expanding accessibility of the Internet and mobile technologies that now permeate daily life worldwide. By 2024, approximately 66.2% of the world's population—around 5.35 billion people—will be actively online, with 97 million new users added in 2023 alone (Kemp, 2024). Social media, as a central infrastructure of contemporary public communication, has become both a conduit for social connection and a contested site of power. Once celebrated as a democratizing space for expression, it is now increasingly dominated by a small number of centralized platform owners. This transformation aligns with broader shifts toward distributed computing and data ownership frameworks associated with Web3 technologies (Korpal and Scott, 2022).

While widespread platform adoption has enabled unprecedented forms of connectivity and public discourse, it has also intensified asymmetries of power embedded in digital communication systems. Platform capitalism relies heavily on data extraction, surveillance, and algorithmic control, producing opaque environments in which users have limited insight into how content is moderated, visibility is allocated, or value is generated. In response to growing concerns over platform accountability and declining institutional trust, alternative models of platform governance have emerged that seek to redistribute control through decentralized architectures, programmable rules, and community-based coordination mechanisms. These developments signal a broader reconfiguration of how communicative authority, legitimacy, and participation are structured in digital environments.

Blockchain-enabled decentralized social media platforms represent one such reconfiguration, offering socio-technical arrangements that reimagine trust, governance, and value within the digital public sphere. Situated within the broader Web3 paradigm, these platforms integrate decentralized infrastructure, token-based economies, and user-controlled digital assets to challenge the centralized political economies of conventional social media. Platforms such as Lens, Farcaster, and Mastodon exemplify this shift by enabling user-owned identity systems, tokenized participation incentives, and collectively governed moderation and rule-making processes. In contrast to centralized platforms such as Meta or X (formerly Twitter)—which have faced criticism for opaque algorithmic interventions, content suppression, and uneven enforcement of moderation policies—decentralized systems propose alternative communicative arrangements grounded in user autonomy, transparency, and collective governance (Alizadeh et al., 2023). At the same time, these platforms blur the boundary between infrastructure and institution, embedding governance directly into technical design and reshaping the relationship between platforms and their publics.

By replacing advertising-driven revenue models with token economies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized finance (DeFi) mechanisms, decentralized platforms introduce new modes of coordination that intertwine economic incentives with communicative participation. Tokens function as economic instruments through which norms, reputation, and participation are negotiated within platform communities. In this sense, code operates as a medium of communication, while governance becomes an ongoing participatory process enacted through programmable infrastructures and collective decision-making practices (Rai et al., 2023).

Recent scholarship has begun to map the decentralized social media ecosystem from an Information Systems perspective, identifying key challenges related to scalability, governance inefficiency, and financial sustainability (Ciriello et al., 2025). However, these analyses have predominantly focused on technical architectures and ecosystem dynamics, with less attention to how decentralized platforms reconfigure communicative power, participatory authority, and the conditions of public discourse—questions central to communication scholarship.

Despite their normative promise, decentralized social media platforms face persistent tensions related to technical complexity, uneven participation, regulatory ambiguity, and questions of inclusion. While these systems aspire to redistribute power and foster participatory communication, they may also reproduce existing inequalities or introduce new forms of exclusion if communicative accessibility and governance transparency are not carefully addressed. The social processes through which participation is enabled, authority is contested, and trust is established within decentralized platforms remain under-examined in communication scholarship.

This study addresses this gap by developing a socio-technical analytical framework for examining decentralized social media platforms across three interrelated dimensions: infrastructure (blockchain architectures and smart contracts), economic coordination (tokenized participation and creator monetization), and platform governance (collective rule-making, moderation, and accountability mechanisms). Drawing on a qualitative mixed-method approach that combines a structured review of prior research with expert interviews from the Web3 ecosystem, the study examines how these dimensions interact to shape communicative power, participation, and governance in emerging digital media systems. By foregrounding the communicative implications of decentralized infrastructures, the paper contributes to ongoing debates in communication research on platform governance, participatory media systems, and the evolving role of digital infrastructures in structuring public discourse and digital media policy.

2 Reconfiguring digital infrastructures and economies in decentralized social media

This section examines how decentralized social media reconfigures the technological and economic infrastructures that underpin contemporary digital communication. Rather than merely substituting technical components, decentralization entails a broader institutional shift that redistributes communicative power, reimagines value circulation, and reshapes the conditions under which participation occurs. As a transformation in media infrastructure, blockchain enables decentralized architectures that foreground user autonomy, transparency, and collective coordination. In doing so, these infrastructures challenge the extractive logic of platform capitalism and introduce alternative, community-oriented arrangements for platform governance and economic participation within digital communication systems.

2.1 Blockchain as socio-technical infrastructure

Blockchain operates as a socio-technical infrastructure through which trust, coordination, and authority are mediated. Its architecture enables tamper-resistant verification and addresses well-documented limitations of centralized platforms, including privacy violations, information asymmetry, and opaque decision-making processes (Temiz et al., 2020). By reducing reliance on third-party intermediaries, blockchain reconfigures how communicative actors interact, formalize agreements, and assign value in digitally mediated environments (Li et al., 2024; Wang et al., 2019).

Figure 1

2.2 Ethical identity and agency via decentralized identity (DID)

2.3 Smart contracts: automating trust and institutional logic

Smart contracts automate agreements through code, embedding participation rules directly within digital infrastructures. In decentralized social media, activities such as rewarding contributions, moderating content, and allocating resources are governed without centralized control (Amoo, 2018; Dwivedi et al., 2021).

2.4 Designing tokenized economies for equitable participation

Decentralized social media platforms also reconfigure economic participation by embedding value exchange directly into communicative interaction. Rather than extracting value from user data, these platforms redistribute it through token economies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and community-based funding mechanisms (Alamsyah et al., 2024; Nagappa, 2023).

2.4.1 Tokens and NFTs: incentivizing meaningful engagement

Token systems transform user activity into economic agency. Posting, curating, or voting earns tokens, allowing users to accumulate digital capital and participate in platform development. NFTs extend this model by monetizing content as unique digital assets (Datta et al., 2010; Qureshi and Zaman, 2023). Such mechanisms reimagine online labor and ownership, positioning users as co-producers within media value chains.

2.4.2 Crowdfunding and DAO ownership: from users to stakeholders

Crowdfunding instruments, including initial coin offerings (ICOs) and DAO-based governance structures, support platform development while enabling shared ownership models (Bernardino et al., 2016; van Teunenbroek and Bekkers, 2020). Through these arrangements, participants shift from being commodified audiences to equity-aligned stakeholders, strengthening platform resilience and long-term community commitment (Liang et al., 2024). Governance thus moves away from centralized broadcast models toward participatory co-ownership embedded in platform infrastructures.

2.4.3 A balanced ecosystem: multi-actor value co-creation

Understanding decentralized economics requires examining how creators, users, advertisers, and investors co-create value within token-mediated environments. Incentive alignment and participatory governance determine equitable outcomes. Table 1 outlines the roles and rewards of key participants.

This multi-actor configuration promotes ecosystem sustainability and equitable growth, in contrast to the winner-takes-all dynamics characteristic of centralized platform economies (Guidi et al., 2020a, 2020b).

2.4.4 Challenges and future directions

3 Methodology

This study adopts a mixed-methods research design that integrates a systematic literature review (SLR) with semi-structured expert interviews to examine the technological, economic, and governance dimensions of decentralized social media. This design is well-suited for investigating emerging socio-technical phenomena, where conceptual clarification, interpretive insight, and stakeholder perspectives are essential for understanding how new communication infrastructures take shape (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2017). The methodological aim is to develop an empirically informed framework that illuminates how decentralized technologies reconfigure platform power, user agency, and economic participation within participatory communication environments.

3.1 Research design overview

The study follows an explanatory sequential design (Figure 2), in which insights from the literature review inform the development of interview protocols. At the same time, practitioner perspectives are subsequently used to refine and contextualize a socio-technical taxonomy. This design supports analytical depth by connecting conceptual patterns identified in prior research with experiential knowledge drawn from actors embedded in Web3 ecosystems. It also aligns with a human-centered communication perspective by foregrounding how individuals and communities interpret, negotiate, and shape evolving digital communication systems enabled by decentralized social media infrastructures.

Figure 2

3.2 Systematic literature review (SLR)

To construct the conceptual foundation of this study, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted in accordance with established guidelines for interpretive and exploratory research synthesis (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2017). The review targeted peer-reviewed academic publications, supplemented by high-relevance grey literature (e.g., white papers, project documentation), published between 2016 and 2025.

3.2.1 Search strategy and protocol

3.2.2 Thematic coding and categorization

Two researchers conducted independent thematic content analysis across the selected publications, coding each source according to its primary contribution to one or more of three provisional domains: technological infrastructure, economic models, and governance mechanisms. Initial coding was conducted deductively using these three broad categories, followed by inductive refinement as sub-themes emerged from the data (e.g., the distinction between token-based and federated governance models, or between creator-facing and user-facing economic mechanisms). Inter-rater consistency was assessed through iterative comparison sessions, and disagreements were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached.

The resulting thematic categories are presented in Table 2. These categories served as the provisional analytical framework that was subsequently refined through expert interviews (Section 3.3).

3.2.3 Screening and selection

Figure 3

3.2.4 Conceptual synthesis

Table 3 maps the 68 selected publications to four topical clusters, illustrating the thematic coverage of the reviewed literature.

The review revealed three interconnected patterns in the literature. First, technological infrastructure studies predominantly address security, privacy, and scalability, but less frequently examine how design choices shape user participation. Second, economic models are typically analyzed as standalone incentive systems rather than as embedded components of governance arrangements. Third, governance research increasingly recognizes the tension between algorithmic enforcement and community deliberation, but rarely examines how this tension is mediated by infrastructure and economic design.

3.3 Expert interviews

To refine and validate the taxonomy, we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight experts in the blockchain and Web3 domains. Participants included founders, developers, and community leaders affiliated with decentralized applications (dApps), DAOs, NFT platforms, and DeFi systems.

Purposive sampling was used to ensure that participants had direct experience with decentralized architecture, token design, or governance implementation. The number of interviews was guided by data saturation principles, and all interviews adhered to ethical protocols, including informed consent and anonymity, in accordance with ethical standards for human-centered ICT research. Given the communicative and governance aspects of decentralized platforms, expert insights were vital to understanding how social contracts, user engagement, and trust are operationalized through infrastructure.

The interview protocol was designed using a semi-structured format that balances methodological rigor with interpretive openness. Questions were intentionally framed at a broad level to allow participants—each embedded in distinct organizational and technical contexts—to surface governance, participation, and communicative authority issues organically, without researcher-imposed framing biases. This approach is consistent with established practice in phenomenological and exploratory qualitative research (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2017), where open-ended questioning enables the emergence of themes that may not be anticipated by the researcher.

During each interview, follow-up probing questions were used to explore governance dynamics, participatory practices, and power relations in greater depth. For example, when participants described DAO voting mechanisms (in response to Q4 or Q7), probing questions such as “Who typically participates in these decisions?” and “How are disagreements or contested outcomes resolved?” were used to elicit more granular insights into governance inclusion and communicative authority. Similarly, responses about economic models (Q5–Q6) were probed with questions about value distribution equity and barriers to participation.

To systematically connect interview insights to the study's analytical framework, Table 5 maps each stakeholder category to the interview questions that elicited the most relevant insights for that group. The mapping was developed iteratively during analysis: as interview transcripts were coded in NVivo, the research team identified which questions generated the richest data for each stakeholder category and governance dimension. The descriptions in Table 5 reflect these empirically grounded connections between interview protocols and the study's core analytical concerns regarding communicative governance, economic participation, and platform authority.

3.4 Data analysis and triangulation

Interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic coding in NVivo, with emergent themes iteratively compared against literature-derived categories. This triangulation enabled the refinement of the analytical framework by integrating conceptual perspectives with practitioner experience. Through this process, the analysis examined how decentralized infrastructures mediate communicative practices, economic coordination, and governance arrangements within platform ecosystems.

The combined analysis supports the development of a taxonomy that reflects both conceptual coherence and empirical grounding. Rather than producing generalizable causal claims, the methodology aims to provide an interpretive framework to inform future communication research on decentralized platforms and practical reflection by platform designers and policy stakeholders.

3.5 From analysis to taxonomy: derivation process

The socio-technical taxonomy presented in Section 4 was developed through an iterative triangulation process integrating findings from both the systematic literature review and expert interviews. Rather than imposing a pre-determined framework, the taxonomy emerged through three sequential analytical stages.

In the first stage, the SLR produced three provisional thematic categories—technological infrastructure, economic models, and governance mechanisms (Table 2)—based on the predominant analytical orientations identified in the 68 reviewed publications. These categories served as an initial scaffolding for organizing conceptual insights from the literature.

In the second stage, expert interview data were analyzed using NVivo (see Appendix A for the complete coding structure). Interview transcripts were coded both deductively, using the SLR-derived categories, and inductively, allowing new themes to emerge from practitioner experience. This process surfaced important nuances not fully captured in the literature. For example, P1 (DAO founder) and P5 (DeFi founder) emphasized how governance failures in practice often stem from the interaction between token distribution mechanisms and smart contract rigidity—a cross-dimensional tension that the literature typically addresses within single domains. Similarly, P3 (Community Manager) and P7 (Product Lead) highlighted that user-onboarding barriers serve as de facto governance exclusion mechanisms, linking infrastructure design directly to participation inequality.

In the third stage, the SLR-derived categories and interview-derived themes were systematically compared and consolidated. Table 6 maps specific findings from each data source to the three taxonomy dimensions, demonstrating the empirical grounding of the framework. Where interview insights confirmed patterns in the literature, these were treated as reinforcing evidence; where interviews surfaced themes absent from the literature (such as the gap between protocol-level transparency and user-perceived trustworthiness), these were integrated as empirically grounded extensions of the taxonomy.

This triangulation process ensured that the taxonomy reflects both conceptual coherence derived from scholarly synthesis and practical grounding derived from stakeholder experience. The resulting framework is thus neither purely deductive nor purely inductive, but operates as an abductive synthesis that iterates between theoretical categories and empirical patterns.

4 Socio-technical taxonomy of decentralized social media

Building on the thematic categories identified through the systematic literature review and expert interviews (Section 3), this section presents a socio-technical taxonomy that synthesizes the technological, economic, and governance dimensions of decentralized social media platforms (Figure 4). The taxonomy approaches decentralization as an infrastructural and institutional transformation that reshapes participation, authority, and value creation within digital communication systems. Drawing on both scholarly literature and practitioner perspectives, the framework provides an analytical lens for examining how blockchain-based infrastructures reorganize institutional logics, user roles, and forms of mediated participation. In doing so, it offers a media-theoretical perspective on emergent infrastructure politics and the governance of public communication.

Figure 4

4.1 Platform logics: from monetization tools to governance experiments

Decentralized social media platforms adopt distinct configurations of governance and monetization that shape how participants engage in value creation and collective decision-making. Instead of converging on a single operational model, platforms reflect diverse socio-technical arrangements grounded in ideological commitments, community norms, and infrastructural affordances (Hasan et al., 2023; Li and Palanisamy, 2018; Zichichi et al., 2021). These arrangements function as normative visions of how digital communication systems organize participation, authority, and legitimacy.

Steemit incentivizes participation through a token-based reward mechanism tied to content engagement. Smart contracts allocate rewards based on user votes and interactions, creating a transparent yet hierarchical structure of visibility in which financial stakes exert significant influence (Datta et al., 2010; Groschopf et al., 2021; Qureshi and Zaman, 2023). While this model enables decentralized monetization, it also reproduces plutocratic dynamics that concentrate influence among token-rich participants.

This dynamic was confirmed by practitioners in our study. As P1 (DAO founder) noted: “The upvote system sounds democratic, but in practice, a handful of large stakeholders determine what gets visibility. It's decentralized in architecture but centralized in influence”. Similarly, P7 (Product Lead) observed that platform governance models are often shaped by early design decisions that become difficult to reverse: “Once token distribution is set, the power structure is baked in. You can't easily redistribute governance weight without forking the protocol”.

Mastodon operates through a federated architecture in which server administrators enforce moderation locally, granting users autonomy to choose communities aligned with their values. This decentralization enhances freedom of expression but can lead to inconsistent experiences and fragmented moderation (Guidi et al., 2020a, 2020b; Sabo et al., 2024; Zichichi et al., 2019). Such fragmentation raises concerns about coherence and inclusivity in federated communication spaces.

Expert interviews corroborated these observations. P4 (Developer Advocate) described the practical challenges of federated moderation: “Each instance is its own little community with its own rules. That's great for autonomy, but terrible for discoverability and consistency. Users moving between instances often encounter completely different norms and expectations”. P8 (Research Analyst) added: “Federation creates a kind of governance archipelago—each island is self-governing, but there's no overarching coordination, which limits the platform's capacity for collective action”.

Lens Protocol represents a more experimental model. It uses NFTs as composable identities, enabling creators to monetize content across multiple dApps without the need for centralized intermediaries (Chen et al., 2022; Flanery et al., 2023). Governance is executed via smart contract–based DAOs, where participants can vote on protocol changes (Monteiro et al., 2024; Valiente and Pavón, 2024). While this enhances transparency and ownership, it introduces new complexities in trust formation and platform adaptability.

P3 (Community Manager) provided a practitioner perspective on Lens's composable identity model: “The idea of owning your social graph across dApps is powerful, but it also means moderation becomes incredibly complex. If someone's identity is portable, banning them from one application doesn't prevent them from appearing on another”.

Diaspora and PeerTube provide peer-to-peer infrastructures that do not rely on blockchain, relying instead on federated trust networks. Although less technologically novel, they highlight the diversity of decentralization paths and emphasize user privacy and data sovereignty (Madine et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2022). These models embody infrastructural minimalism and ethical resistance to platformization. Table 7 summarizes how differing governance architectures translate ideological commitments into distinct economic and participatory logics across decentralized social media platforms.

Collectively, these platforms demonstrate that architecture itself becomes a medium of governance: it encodes norms, structures participation, and performs legitimacy (Amoo, 2018; Cao, 2022; Xu et al., 2018). As decentralized ecosystems mature, balancing incentive alignment with inclusivity and sustainability remains critical for ensuring durable alternatives to extractive digital capitalism (Zetzsche et al., 2019).

These design choices reflect broader visions of digital society—what is valued, who decides, and how trust is negotiated across technical and institutional boundaries. What emerges across these platform configurations is that architecture itself operates as a form of communicative gatekeeping: decisions about token distribution, smart contract logic, and onboarding design determine who can participate and whose contributions gain visibility, often before any explicit governance process takes place.

4.2 Participatory economies in decentralized social media

Decentralized social media platforms challenge the ad-based monetization paradigm of Web2 by introducing blockchain-powered models that center on direct, transparent, and programmable value exchange. Rather than extracting user data for profit, these models offer creators and users mechanisms to monetize, transact, and collaborate without intermediaries. Smart contracts automate these interactions, enhancing trust, autonomy, and traceability (Ali et al., 2024; Hasan et al., 2023). These platforms recast economic relations as communicative acts, embedding value transfer within socially meaningful interactions.

Participatory economic mechanisms—such as token economies, subscriptions, NFTs, crowdfunding, and decentralized advertising—redistribute value and reshape platform social contracts by transforming users from passive content consumers into economic stakeholders (D.tube, 2019; Gruzd et al., 2024; Nagappa, 2023). By enabling new forms of mediated participation, these mechanisms challenge the communicative asymmetries of traditional platform capitalism. The following subsections detail each model and its operational logic.

4.2.1 Token economy and reward

Token economies serve as the foundational logic for many decentralized platforms. By converting user engagement—such as likes, shares, and curation—into quantifiable value, these systems reward creators directly and transparently. Platforms like Steemit and Minds use smart contracts to automate these exchanges, linking engagement metrics to token distribution without centralized oversight (Alamsyah and Muhammad, 2024; Ali et al., 2024; Diamond and Wicaksana, 2023; Li et al., 2023). This merit-based system promotes content quality, reinforces community participation, and mitigates issues of payment opacity (Gruzd et al., 2024).

Practitioner perspectives reinforced the complexity of token-based reward systems. P5 (DeFi founder) explained: “Token rewards incentivize contribution, but they also create perverse incentives. People optimize for token accumulation, not necessarily for quality content or genuine engagement”. P3 (Community Manager) added that the economic dimension is inseparable from governance: “When your governance tokens are also your reward currency, economic decisions become political decisions. Voting power and earning power collapse into the same metric”.

Figure 5 illustrates this tokenized reward cycle. Smart contracts translate user engagement directly into tokenized rewards, transforming everyday communicative acts—likes and shares—into measurable economic participation. This shift reframes audience interaction as a form of co-governance within participatory digital ecosystems.

Figure 5

4.2.2 Subscription model

Decentralized subscription systems enable creators to generate recurring income by granting access to premium content in exchange for token-based payments. Smart contracts define access rights, revenue sharing, and intellectual property parameters—enforcing them transparently and immutably. For example, platforms such as D.tube facilitate token-based subscriptions that bypass centralized payment processors, allowing creators to have full control over pricing and distribution (D.tube, 2019; Nagappa, 2023).

Figure 6 shows how this model functions: users subscribe to content via token transfer, triggering a smart contract that authorizes access and channels rewards directly to the creator. This disintermediated process strengthens audience relationships and increases creators' autonomy. It also shifts control over distribution, visibility, and pricing from platforms to creators, reflecting a shift toward audience-driven economies of communication.

Figure 6

4.2.3 Digital marketplace and NFTs

NFT-based digital marketplaces enable users to tokenize creative outputs—such as images, videos, and writings—into traceable, tradable assets. Platforms like Zora and Mirror use smart contracts to mint, verify, and transact NFTs, allowing creators to retain ownership while automating royalty enforcement and provenance (Bálint, 2024; Lu et al., 2023; Meyns and Dalipi, 2022).

Interview participants highlighted uneven access to NFT-based monetization. P3 (Community Manager) observed: “NFTs work well for creators who already have an audience. For new or marginalized creators, the barrier to entry—minting costs, platform literacy, market visibility—is still significant”. P1 (DAO founder) noted the speculative dimension: “A lot of NFT engagement is driven by financial speculation rather than genuine support for creative work. That distorts the relationship between creators and their audiences”.

Figure 7 illustrates this process: after a creator mints content as an NFT, buyers can bid or purchase it via a blockchain transaction. The platform's smart contract automates payments, secures ownership transfers, and ensures ongoing royalties — allowing creators to monetize their work without intermediaries. NFTs function as assets and as programmable media objects that carry embedded social, economic, and reputational metadata.

Figure 7

4.2.4 Crowdfunding and ICOs

Community-based fundraising—through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) or tokenized crowdfunding—enables creators and platforms to access capital directly from users. Platforms like Mirror and Gitcoin provide smart contract–based tools for setting funding milestones, issuing reward tokens, and managing investment transparency (Cai, 2018; Menon et al., 2023; Niu et al., 2023).

Figure 8 illustrates a typical flow: a creator announces a project and sets a funding goal; users contribute tokens via a smart contract, in return receiving tokens or rights. The process is transparent, decentralized, and trackable — aligning incentives between creators and supporters. This model transforms audiences into micro-investors, linking support to shared stakes in the success of communication.

Figure 8

4.2.5 Decentralized advertising

Decentralized advertising reimagines the relationship between brands, creators, and audiences by removing centralized ad brokers and enabling smart contract–driven campaigns. Platforms like Brave and BitTube automate the flow of funds and engagement tracking, offering users control over data exposure and creators fair compensation (D.tube, 2019; Hasan et al., 2023).

P7 (Product Lead) offered a cautionary note on decentralized advertising: “Decentralized ad systems are promising in theory, but in practice, advertisers want scale and predictability. Most decentralized platforms can't yet deliver either. Until the user base grows, the ad model remains aspirational”.

Figure 9 illustrates this mechanism: advertisers deposit tokens into a contract, creators publish content with integrated ads, and users interact with the content. The smart contract monitors engagement (clicks and views) and distributes tokens accordingly, improving transparency and reducing ad fraud. In this configuration, attention itself becomes a co-negotiated economic signal within participatory media ecosystems.

Figure 9

Taken together, these economic configurations reveal that decentralization is less about technical disintermediation and more about redistributing communicative power. By embedding value exchange within interaction itself, these platforms turn users into stakeholders, yet also risk introducing new hierarchies shaped by token ownership and technical literacy.

4.2.6 Synthesis: economic architectures as institutional innovation

These economic mechanisms reflect a deeper institutional redesign, not merely monetization tools. They empower creators, users, advertisers, and investors to co-define platform value, but also raise concerns over token volatility, adoption complexity, and regulatory fragility (Ozili, 2022; Schär, 2020). Crucially, these systems instantiate new political economies of communication, where governance, access, and rewards are embedded in the protocol design.

Future trajectories will hinge on addressing these risks while reinforcing fairness, usability, and resilience. The core tension running through these economic mechanisms is the ambivalence of tokenized participation. The same instruments that transform users into economic stakeholders—tokens, NFTs, crowdfunding—also introduce speculative dynamics, perverse incentives, and access barriers that may reproduce rather than dismantle communicative inequality. Economic design, therefore, is inseparable from governance: choices about how value is distributed simultaneously determine who has voice, visibility, and influence within platform ecosystems.

4.3 Governance mechanisms in decentralized social media

Decentralized governance mechanisms seek to replace opaque, corporate-controlled moderation with participatory, transparent, and programmable systems. These systems aim to increase user agency, promote community-aligned decision-making, and foster institutional trust within platform ecosystems. However, the design and implementation of governance across decentralized platforms remain heterogeneous, experimental, and often contested. Governance, in this context, encompasses technical rule enforcement and functions as a communicative ordering that defines legitimacy, authority, and user inclusion (Jhaver et al., 2023).

We identify three dominant governance paradigms that operationalize participation and rule enforcement across platforms: token-based DAO voting, federated community moderation, and hybrid algorithmic governance.

4.3.1 Token-based voting and DAOs

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are a hallmark of blockchain governance. Through smart contracts, they operationalize voting processes, budget allocation, and policy-making. Recent analyses emphasize that DAOs exemplify the broader trajectory of Web3 governance, integrating decentralized decision-making with community-driven accountability and institutional experimentation (Srinivas and Rao, 2024). Users typically hold governance tokens that represent their voting power, enabling them to propose or vote on changes to the platform (Chang et al., 2019; Li and Palanisamy, 2018).

Platforms such as Lens Protocol, Mirror, and Peepeth incorporate DAO-based governance to inform decisions regarding curation, development priorities, and monetization parameters. These structures are intended to democratize control and reinforce accountability. Yet, participation inequality and token concentration remain persistent challenges. High-stakes token holders often dominate voting outcomes, while the technical complexity of proposals can discourage broad engagement (Ellinger et al., 2023; Hunhevicz et al., 2024). This reflects a paradox: while DAOs promise open participation, they risk entrenching new hierarchies of voice and influence.

Expert insights underscored the participation challenges inherent in DAO governance. P1 (DAO founder) described a recurring pattern: “We see the same 15–20 people showing up for governance votes. The majority of token holders never participate. It's technically open, but functionally it's an oligarchy”. P8 (Research Analyst) contextualized this within broader governance theory: “The problem is that DAOs promise direct democracy but deliver something closer to stakeholder capitalism. Voting power is proportional to investment, not to contribution or expertise”. P6 (Smart Contract Engineer) added a technical perspective: “The smart contracts enforce voting rules rigidly, but they can't account for context. A proposal that makes sense in one market condition might be harmful in another, and there's no mechanism for nuanced judgment”.

4.3.2 Federated moderation and community governance

In contrast to token-based DAOs, federated platforms like Mastodon and Diaspora enable governance at the server level. Each node operates independently, sets its moderation rules, and is administered by trusted community leaders (Guidi et al., 2020a, 2020b; Zichichi et al., 2019). This model empowers localized governance and enhances cultural responsiveness, enabling communities to define their own values and enforcement mechanisms that reflect their unique context.

Practitioners confirmed the tensions identified in the literature. P4 (Developer Advocate) noted: “Federated moderation gives communities autonomy, but it also creates fragmentation. When a user is banned on one instance, they just migrate to another. There's no cross-instance accountability”. P7 (Product Lead) described the governance gap: “The biggest challenge isn't the technology—it's the social infrastructure. Who trains moderators? Who handles appeals? In federated systems, these questions often go unanswered”.

However, this approach introduces fragmentation: moderation standards vary widely, interoperability may suffer, and disputes across servers lack unified resolution pathways. It illustrates that decentralization can enhance autonomy but complicate coordination (Livitckaia et al., 2023). As a result, public discourse becomes disjointed, raising challenges for sustaining cohesive norms and cross-community trust.

4.3.3 Algorithmic and hybrid governance models

Emerging platforms, including Aether and Peepeth, experiment with algorithmic governance, in which moderation decisions, dispute resolution, and content prioritization are governed by programmable logic embedded in smart contracts (Amoo, 2018; Hasan et al., 2023). For instance, rules about harmful content thresholds or community sanctions can be encoded to automate enforcement.

Some systems blend community oversight with algorithmic rules. For example, content may first be flagged by smart contract conditions and then escalated to human curators elected through DAO processes. These hybrid models aim to balance scalability and accountability, though they raise concerns about transparency, algorithmic bias, and the risk of governance ossification (Sarode et al., 2024; Wright and De Filippi, 2015). Here, governance becomes a choreography between human judgment and machine execution, demanding continuous reflexivity and openness to revision. Table 8 provides a comparative overview of the three governance approaches—token-based DAO voting, federated community moderation, and algorithmic or hybrid models—highlighting their respective strengths and limitations.

P2 (Developer) highlighted the practical difficulty of hybrid governance: “You can set automated rules for clear-cut cases—spam, illegal content—but most moderation decisions are contextual. The hybrid approach sounds elegant, but deciding where the algorithm stops and human judgment begins is an ongoing negotiation”.

These governance models reflect different socio-political imaginaries: some emulate direct democracy, others resemble technocratic rule, and some lean toward anarchic decentralism. Yet all reflect the core shift in platform governance—from corporate decision-making toward community-based rule systems. Governance in decentralized social media is simultaneously infrastructural and ideological, shaping what is permitted while rendering authority visible and contestable.

As governance becomes codified in algorithms and tokens, new questions emerge about legitimacy, inclusivity, and contestability. Who gets to shape the code? How are marginalized voices included? Can platforms evolve without recreating the exclusions of Web 2?. These tensions suggest that governance innovation is not merely a technical problem, but a profoundly human and institutional one. Future models must incorporate mechanisms for deliberation, redress, and revision to support both stability and adaptability in complex digital communities.

Across DAO, federated, and hybrid governance, legitimacy no longer stems from institutional authority but from procedural transparency and collective engagement. However, the uneven accessibility of these systems means that digital participation remains conditioned by technical competence and resource asymmetry, re-politicizing the notion of “openness” in platform governance. Across all three paradigms, a gap persists between procedural openness and substantive inclusion: formally transparent mechanisms do not guarantee equitable engagement when token concentration, governance fatigue, and technical literacy constrain who actually participates in collective decision-making.

4.4 Challenges and frictions in practice

Despite the promise of decentralized architectures, their implementation remains uneven, constrained by unresolved tensions at technical, institutional, and social levels. This section outlines the key frictions that limit the effectiveness and adoption of decentralized social media platforms, including governance complexity, regulatory uncertainty, and user onboarding challenges. These frictions illustrate how infrastructural transformation alone does not resolve deeper communicative, normative, and institutional dilemmas.

4.4.1 Governance fatigue and coordination gridlock

While DAOs aim to foster collective decision-making, they often struggle with low participation and coordination inefficiencies. In token-governed systems, voting rights are frequently concentrated among high-stake holders, reproducing elite capture and reducing representational legitimacy (Hunhevicz et al., 2024; Monteiro et al., 2024). Governance processes encoded in smart contracts may lack the flexibility to adapt to evolving community needs or unforeseen events, resulting in decision paralysis or poor platform responsiveness (Ellinger et al., 2023). Without mechanisms for iterative governance and conflict resolution, these systems risk becoming brittle and exclusionary. The communicative burden of constant governance, combined with the lack of reflexive mechanisms, can lead to user disengagement and a sense of democratic fatigue.

Interview participants provided firsthand accounts of governance fatigue. P5 (DeFi founder) reflected: “In our early days, the community was excited about governance. Everybody wanted to vote. Two years later, participation dropped to single digits. People got tired of debating every parameter change”. P1 (DAO founder) connected this to a broader legitimacy concern: “When only 3% of token holders vote, can you really call the outcome democratic? We’re making decisions that affect thousands of users based on the preferences of a tiny minority”.

4.4.2 Regulatory ambiguity and legal grey zones

Decentralized platforms operate within ambiguous legal boundaries. Comparable patterns were observed in early cryptocurrency regulation, where inconsistent national interpretations complicated legal harmonization and cross-border compliance (Sholihah and Afriansyah, 2019). As token economies blur the lines between utility, asset, and governance instruments, creators and users face uncertainty over taxation, securities law, and liability (Zetzsche et al., 2019). This legal opacity inhibits mainstream adoption and deters institutional involvement. For example, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and community funding mechanisms on platforms like Mirror or Gitcoin raise concerns about compliance and investor protection (Cai, 2018; Menon et al., 2023). The absence of standardized accountability protocols also complicates regulatory oversight. Moreover, the lack of shared standards limits the emergence of coherent regulatory narratives around participatory digital media.

Regulatory uncertainty emerged as a persistent concern across interviews. P8 (Research Analyst) observed: “The regulatory landscape is fragmented and contradictory. A token that's classified as a utility in one jurisdiction is a security in another. Platforms operating globally face impossible compliance challenges”. P5 (DeFi founder) added: “The uncertainty itself is the biggest obstacle. Builders are reluctant to invest in governance infrastructure when the legal ground might shift under them at any moment”.

4.4.3 Usability barriers and adoption inequality

High entry barriers persist in user experience and platform accessibility. Wallet setup, private key management, and token transaction fees pose significant friction, particularly for non-technical users (Venkatesh et al., 2016). Even for technically literate users, platform fragmentation and inconsistent user interfaces hinder cross-platform participation. While projects like Lens and Farcaster offer wallet-agnostic onboarding, adoption remains limited. Without significant advances in human-centered design, decentralized systems risk reinforcing the very digital divides they seek to dismantle. These usability challenges reflect broader exclusions in digital literacy and raise concerns about equity in who can participate in these reimagined media spaces.

Expert interviews consistently identified usability as the most significant barrier to broader adoption. P7 (Product Lead) stated: “We’ve done user testing with non-crypto-native populations. The moment they encounter wallet setup and seed phrases, we lose over 80% of potential users. That's not a minor friction—that's a fundamental accessibility problem”. P4 (Developer Advocate) framed this as a governance issue: “If only technically literate users can participate, then decentralization reproduces exactly the kind of exclusion it claims to solve. The digital divide doesn't disappear just because you’re on a blockchain”.

4.4.4 Reproducing platform power in new forms

Ironically, some decentralized models replicate the same extractive tendencies they aim to disrupt. On platforms like Steemit, token-rich users disproportionately influence content visibility and governance outcomes (Datta et al., 2010; Guidi and Michienzi, 2021; Qureshi and Zaman, 2023). Rather than eliminating centralization, these systems may shift power from corporate entities to crypto elites—raising critical questions about equity and long-term sustainability (Chang et al., 2019; Schär, 2020). Platform power may thus be redistributed but not dissolved—reinscribing asymmetries under the guise of neutrality and code.

Practitioners acknowledged this paradox. P1 (DAO founder) reflected: “We built the platform to escape Big Tech control, but now our biggest stakeholders behave a lot like the centralized gatekeepers we replaced. The power hasn't disappeared—it's just moved from corporations to whales”. P8 (Research Analyst) added: “The discourse around decentralization often masks the re-concentration of power. When governance tokens trade on open markets, influence becomes a commodity—and those with the most capital set the rules”.

4.4.5 Ethical ambiguities in moderation and identity

The removal of centralized gatekeepers complicates content moderation and identity verification. While decentralization empowers anonymity and freedom of expression, it can also reduce accountability and facilitate the spread of harassment or misinformation (Routray and Bera, 2025). Federated systems, such as Mastodon, introduce local moderation standards; however, inconsistencies across nodes and the absence of unified enforcement mechanisms limit their effectiveness (Guidi et al., 2020a, 2020b; Zichichi et al., 2019). Platforms such as Peepeth and Aether experiment with hybrid models that combine smart contract rules and human curation, but these remain experimental and contested (Sun et al., 2022). Such models reflect tensions between freedom and safety, raising fundamental questions about the ethics of communicative autonomy in decentralized systems.

5 Discussion

5.1 Communicative power, participation, and governance in decentralized platforms

The combined analysis of the systematic literature review and expert interviews reveals that decentralized social media platforms represent a substantive reconfiguration of communicative authority, participation, and institutional governance in digital environments. This reconfiguration operates across three interrelated dimensions—technological infrastructure, economic models, and governance mechanisms—that interact in ways that generate emergent tensions not captured by existing single-dimension analyses.

Three key empirical findings merit particular attention. First, the literature consistently identifies blockchain infrastructure as enabling transparency, user autonomy, and tamper-resistant verification (Prajapat et al., 2025; Temiz et al., 2020), and expert interviews confirmed these affordances in practice. However, practitioners also emphasized that infrastructure design choices produce governance effects that extend far beyond their technical function. As P6 (Smart Contract Engineer) observed, the rigidity of smart contract logic constrains governance adaptability, while P4 (Developer Advocate) noted that onboarding complexity functions as a hidden exclusion mechanism. Rather than serving as a neutral substrate for governance, infrastructure actively constitutes the conditions of communicative participation—a pattern visible in both the platform configurations analyzed in Section 4.1 and the usability barriers documented in Section 4.4.3.

Second, token economies were found to both enable and constrain equitable participation. The literature documents how tokenized reward systems transform user engagement into economic agency (Ali et al., 2024; Nagappa, 2023), while expert interviews revealed the limitations of these systems in practice. Practitioners described how token concentration reproduces plutocratic dynamics (P1), how speculative behavior distorts creator-audience relationships (P3), and how economic incentives require continuous calibration to prevent manipulation (P5). Taken together, the evidence complicates the normative narrative of token economies as inherently democratizing, pointing instead to an ambivalent dynamic—documented across Sections 4.2.1, 4.2.3, and 4.4.4—in which economic design co-determines governance legitimacy and communicative inclusion.

Third, governance mechanisms across decentralized platforms remain heterogeneous and contested. The literature identifies three dominant paradigms—token-based DAO voting, federated community moderation, and hybrid algorithmic governance (Sections 4.3.1–4.3.3)—each with distinct affordances and limitations. Expert interviews surfaced important practitioner-level insights not fully represented in the literature: the phenomenon of governance fatigue as participation declines over time (P1, P5), the absence of cross-instance accountability in federated systems (P4), and the fundamental tension between protocol-level transparency and user-perceived trustworthiness (P7, P8). Governance innovation in decentralized platforms is thus not merely a technical design problem but a communicative and institutional challenge—as the analyses in Sections 4.3.1–4.3.3 and 4.4.1 demonstrate—that requires ongoing deliberation, adaptation, and mechanisms for contestation.

These findings contribute to communication scholarship in two significant ways. First, by situating decentralized platforms within broader debates on media governance and communicative power (Livitckaia et al., 2023), the study demonstrates how blockchain-based infrastructures reshape the conditions under which public discourse is organized—determining who can speak, whose contributions are valued, and how collective decisions are made. This framing extends recent IS-oriented analyses of decentralized social media ecosystems (Ciriello et al., 2025) by foregrounding the communicative dimensions of platform design and governance. Where their ecosystem-level analysis emphasizes user stewardship and system architecture, our taxonomy highlights how communicative power, participation, and visibility are jointly constituted by infrastructure choices, economic incentives, and governance arrangements. Second, the integrative taxonomy reveals that the tensions facing decentralized platforms—between transparency and usability, between openness and inclusion, between automation and deliberation—are not properties of any single dimension but emerge from their interaction.

This cross-dimensional perspective provides an analytical lens that complements existing single-dimension frameworks and offers practical guidance for platform designers and policymakers seeking to build equitable and sustainable communication systems. The taxonomy's conceptual contribution is twofold. First, unlike prior typologies that catalogue infrastructure, economics, and governance as parallel but separate domains (e.g., Ciriello et al., 2025; Livitckaia et al, 2023)., the present framework foregrounds dimensional interactions as the primary site of analytical interest—revealing, for instance, how token concentration co-produces governance failure (Sections 4.3.1 and 4.4.1), or how onboarding friction functions as de facto exclusion from both economic participation and governance voice (Sections 4.1 and 4.4.3). Second, by grounding this integrative lens within communication scholarship, the taxonomy reframes questions typically treated as technical or economic—scalability, incentive design, protocol governance—as fundamentally communicative questions about who can speak, whose contributions are valued, and how collective authority is legitimated in digitally mediated public spaces.

5.2 Applying the taxonomy: analytical and design implications

To demonstrate the analytical utility of the proposed taxonomy, this section presents three application scenarios that illustrate how cross-dimensional analysis generates insights that single-lens approaches would not produce. These scenarios draw on patterns identified through the combined SLR and interview analysis, showing how the taxonomy can inform platform design, governance evaluation, and regulatory assessment.

5.2.1 Scenario 1: evaluating DAO participation inequality (governance focus)

Consider a decentralized social media platform that has implemented DAO-based governance through token-weighted voting. Despite formally open governance processes, the platform observes consistently low voter turnout and decision-making dominated by a small number of token-rich participants—a pattern documented in the literature (Chang et al., 2019; Hunhevicz et al., 2024) and confirmed by practitioners in this study (P1, P8).

Analyzed through the governance dimension alone, this appears as a procedural problem: voter turnout is low and participation is unequal. However, applying the taxonomy across all three dimensions reveals that the governance failure is co-produced by infrastructure and economic design. At the technological level, the smart contract architecture enforces a rigid one-token-one-vote mechanism that cannot accommodate alternative models such as quadratic voting or reputation-weighted participation without a protocol-level redesign (a constraint identified by P6). At the economic level, the token distribution mechanism concentrates governance power among early investors and large stakeholders, creating a structural plutocracy that mirrors the very centralization the platform seeks to dismantle (Ciriello et al., 2025; Qureshi and Zaman, 2023). The taxonomy thus reveals that meaningful governance reform requires coordinated intervention across all three dimensions—adjusting smart contract logic, restructuring token distribution, and redesigning governance procedures simultaneously—rather than treating participation as an isolated governance variable.

5.2.2 Scenario 2: designing equitable creator monetization (economic focus)

Consider a hypothetical creator-owned video platform evaluating monetization architectures. The platform must choose between several economic models (token rewards, NFT-based content ownership, subscription mechanisms) while simultaneously designing governance arrangements and selecting technical infrastructure.

The taxonomy enables systematic comparison across dimensions. An NFT-based ownership model (economic) offers creators direct monetization and portable content rights, but when combined with federated moderation (governance) on a Layer 2 blockchain (infrastructure), the platform faces specific cross-dimensional trade-offs: content portability across dApps enhances creator autonomy but complicates content moderation, as problematic content can reappear on any compatible application. Meanwhile, the Layer 2 infrastructure reduces transaction costs but introduces bridge vulnerabilities. A subscription model, by contrast, simplifies content governance but limits the economic upside for creators and reduces their stake in platform governance. The taxonomy makes these interdependencies visible, enabling designers to make informed trade-offs rather than optimizing along a single dimension. As P3 (Community Manager) noted during interviews, economic design choices that ignore governance implications often produce unintended exclusion effects—a pattern that only becomes legible through cross-dimensional analysis.

5.2.3 Scenario 3: regulatory assessment of a decentralized platform (integrative focus)

Consider a policy analyst tasked with assessing the regulatory implications of a platform like Lens Protocol. The taxonomy provides a structured analytical framework for identifying regulatory gaps that emerge specifically at dimensional intersections. At the technology-governance intersection, Lens's use of NFTs as composable identities enables portable user profiles across multiple dApps, but also complicates accountability for content moderation, as no single application bears responsibility for identity management—a challenge confirmed by P8 (Research Analyst). At the economics-governance intersection, the platform's token-based DAO governance creates ambiguity regarding securities regulation: governance tokens that also carry economic value may trigger regulatory obligations under securities law in multiple jurisdictions (Zetzsche et al., 2019). At the technology-economics intersection, the immutability of blockchain records ensures content provenance but conflicts with data deletion rights under GDPR. These intersectional tensions are invisible when technology, economics, and governance are assessed in regulatory silos—a common limitation identified in current policy approaches (P8; Livitckaia et al., 2023).

These scenarios illustrate that the taxonomy's contribution lies not in identifying technology, economics, or governance as relevant dimensions—which is established in prior work—but in providing an analytical lens that reveals how these dimensions interact to produce emergent tensions, trade-offs, and exclusion mechanisms that are invisible to single-dimension analyses. The cross-dimensional perspective is particularly valuable for communication scholarship, as it demonstrates how communicative power, participation, and visibility are jointly shaped by infrastructure choices, economic incentives, and governance arrangements rather than by any single factor in isolation.

6 Research limitation

This study has several limitations that warrant consideration. First, the research adopts a primarily conceptual and exploratory orientation, drawing on a systematic literature review and expert interviews to construct a taxonomy of decentralized social media platforms. While illustrative cases such as Mastodon, Steemit, and Lens are discussed, the study does not incorporate behavioural or longitudinal user data that would enable examination of platform dynamics over time. Future research could extend this framework through in-situ observation, user interaction metrics, or ethnographic approaches across diverse socio-economic contexts.

Second, although blockchain infrastructure offers enhanced transparency and security, it also introduces technical complexity that may limit adoption. Barriers such as transaction costs, scalability constraints, and the learning demands associated with decentralized identities and wallet management remain significant. These usability frictions reflect design challenges alongside broader inequalities in digital literacy and access. In addition, the study relies on perspectives from a selected group of experts, which may constrain the generalizability of findings. Broader stakeholder engagement—including everyday users, marginalized groups, and regulatory actors—would enrich understanding of participation and adoption dynamics.

Third, regulatory conditions surrounding decentralized platforms remain uncertain and fragmented. This study does not fully address the legal and policy implications of data protection, content moderation, or token-based economic arrangements. Further interdisciplinary research is needed to examine how innovation policy and regulatory frameworks can support responsible platform development while protecting user rights. Such inquiry is essential for addressing questions of accountability, redress, and legitimacy within decentralized media ecosystems.

Fourth, while the revised manuscript integrates direct interview quotations and provides greater methodological transparency through the PRISMA protocol and NVivo coding appendix, the study's expert sample remains limited to eight practitioners from the Web3 ecosystem. Although data saturation was observed across the three taxonomy dimensions, the perspectives represented are predominantly those of platform builders and analysts, rather than everyday users or marginalized communities. Future research should expand the participant pool to include non-technical users, content moderators, and regulatory stakeholders to provide a more comprehensive account of how communicative power and participation are experienced across different positions within decentralized platform ecosystems.

7 Conclusion

This study develops an integrative framework for understanding decentralized social media platforms through technological, economic, and governance dimensions. Using a mixed-method approach that combines a systematic literature review with phenomenological expert interviews, it identifies key enablers of decentralization, including blockchain infrastructures, smart contracts, Web3 protocols, DeFi models, and DAO-based governance mechanisms. Decentralization is framed as a transformation in communication governance and media systems that reconfigures participation, authority, and value exchange.

The findings demonstrate that decentralized social media platforms challenge centralized paradigms by promoting transparency, user autonomy, and alternative value-distribution models. These platforms enable economic participation beyond data extraction and advertising dependence, while also encountering persistent challenges related to technical complexity, regulatory ambiguity, adoption barriers, and scalability. Such tensions position decentralization as an ongoing social and institutional experiment that tests new configurations of participation, trust, and governance within digital ecosystems.

By synthesizing insights across technology, economy, and governance, this research advances discussions on platform innovation and digital governance. The proposed taxonomy provides a foundation for future studies examining the socio-technical implications of decentralized platforms. Related participatory governance models are increasingly explored in educational and institutional settings, where Web3 infrastructures facilitate new forms of coordination and collective decision-making (Sutikno and Aisyahrani, 2023). Future research should empirically assess the effectiveness of governance, platform performance, and long-term sustainability.

By demonstrating how the taxonomy can be applied to evaluate governance failures, design trade-offs, and regulatory gaps across specific platform scenarios (Section 5.2), this study offers not only an analytical contribution but also a practical tool for platform designers, policymakers, and communication scholars seeking to navigate the complexities of decentralized media governance.

More broadly, this analysis contributes to debates on how infrastructures shape authority, visibility, and agency in digital environments. Viewing decentralized platforms as programmable institutions extends discussions of governance innovation and participatory regulation in the Web3 era, informing policy dialogues on innovation governance and digital infrastructure design to foster equitable and transparent online communication systems.

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