Kids often get asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. Though some respond with lots of conviction, their answers tend to have little predictive value. In fact, according to a study done by the World Economic Forum, 65% of students entering primary school today will end up working jobs that do not exist yet.
Technological advancements have not only broadened the spectrum of possible jobs but are challenging the very idea of a nine-to-five. As legendary investor Bill Gurley says, “Driving with Uber reverses the way we have been trained to think about labor. Instead of making labor conform to management’s notion of a ‘job’, Uber hands control to the worker”.
Beyond offering workers greater flexibility and control of their schedules, the internet is increasingly blurring the line between work and play. Twitch is the quintessential example of this phenomenon: gamers can earn up to 7 figures by simply broadcasting themselves playing video games.
The more recent and perhaps more fascinating instance of this phenomenon is the hit play-to-earn game, Axie Infinity.
Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game, in which players purchase cute monsters, called Axies, and then battle them against each other. Players who win these battles or complete daily quests earn an in-game currency, called Smooth Love Portion (SLP), which can be exchanged for fiat money (actual cash).
According to Coindesk, as of July 2021, the average Axie Infinity player could earn about 4,500 SLP per month, which was equivalent to roughly $800 USD at the time. The game has seen a massive explosion in growth from 30,000 daily active users in April 2021 to more than 1 million in August, with most players coming from emerging markets such as the Philippines, Venezuela and Brazil. In fact, scores of Filipinos quit their jobs to play Axie Infinity for hours each day because it paid a better living, with some earning 3x what they made at their ‘real’ jobs.
