What originally attracted me to Glow was not the solar or the carbon credits, but rather the way that it interacted with Capitalism.
Capitalism, though vast in its capabilities, is fundamentally very simple. It doesn't see things in terms of right and wrong, and it doesn't have any particular design in mind for society. Instead, it just follows the money. And for better or for worse, that's the strategy that has dominated the global economy. For nearly every person in the world, Capitalism decides what jobs they have, what foods they eat, and even how they talk to their friends.
Though ruthless, Capitalism has a saving grace. It's predictable. It doesn't hold grudges, it doesn't cling to specific ideologies, and it doesn't care about the past. Whatever makes money today is what Capitalism pursues. And what made Glow interesting was the way that it exploited this single-minded attitude. Glow realized that by controlling what makes money, it could command the strength of Capitalism.
Early Glow
The first iteration of Glow focused on a very specific opportunity. In much of the world, coal was slightly more profitable than solar. Capitalism however only cares about what is most profitable, so a slight edge is all that is needed for coal to be the vastly dominant technology.
Glow realized that because the profit gap was tiny, it was also inexpensive to tip the scale. By providing just enough incentive to make solar the more profitable technology, Glow could convince all of Capitalism to prefer solar over coal. Tens of dollars of incentive could command thousands of dollars of investment. And it worked. The first iteration of Glow funded the construction of more than $20 million of solar.
However, much like Capitalism itself, the first iteration of Glow was very single-minded in its goals. It cared about one specific climate metric, and it pursued that metric without any compassion for the people that depended on its electricity. Glow lacked the very humanity that it sought to imbue into Capitalism. And so, even though the first iteration of Glow was interesting, it had to be redesigned.
Revisiting the Fundamentals
Glow is fundamentally composed of two mechanisms. The first mechanism is the incentive: continuous GLW token inflation that is used to tip the scales of Capitalism. There's no question that this mechanism works well - Glow was excellent at using incentives to drive the construction of new solar farms.
The second mechanism is the target. The first iteration of Glow exclusively targeted the production of a specific type of carbon credit, and its rigidity is what made Glow as impassionate as the Capitalism it was trying to control. The solution was therefore simple: Glow needed to add some humanity to the way that it selected its target.
The Humanization of Glow
The key difference between the first and second iteration of Glow is that in the second iteration, Glow has multiple targets. And instead of each target being chosen by the developers, anyone can propose a new target for Glow. Furthermore, anyone can steer GLW token inflation between the different targets using a new asset called Glow control, or GCTL.
These changes are a fundamental enhancement for Glow: Glow is now an engine that controls the flow of Capitalism. GLW token inflation is the fuel, and the different targets set by the Glow community determine how Glow leverages Capitalism to shape the world.
Most importantly, the whole system is governed by humans. Humans choose the targets, humans own the GCTL, and humans decide all of the ways that Glow uses incentives to influence society. This makes Glow, and in turn Capitalism itself, as human as the community that governs it.