Status as a Service

“Status as a Service” (StaaS) is Eugene Wei’s framing of social platforms, quoted at length in Working in Public as the lens for why creators chase social capital. Wei argues “that many of the largest tech companies are, in part, status as a service businesses” — a fact “not often discussed” because “most people don’t like to admit to being motivated by status, and few CEOs are going to admit that the job to be done for their company is stroking people’s egos.” His prescription is not to ignore that “humans are wired to pursue social capital”; the mistake is treating these networks “as marketplaces trading only in information, and not in status,” which means “we’re only seeing part of the machine.”

Working in Public pairs this with Wei’s account of Facebook’s News Feed as “the greatest social capital boom in history” — a single “giant attention arena, complete with live updating scoreboards on each post,” where everyone is “performing on Facebook for approval” on “one large, connected infinite stage.” Together these frame the book’s analysis of why open-source creators and online producers behave the way they do: they operate inside status marketplaces, not just information ones.

Context: “Status as a Service” is a widely cited 2019 essay by Eugene Wei (former Hulu/Flipboard/Oculus product executive) arguing that successful social networks function as marketplaces for social capital, with proof-of-work signaling and status games driving early adoption.

Where this appears

• Working in Public — Eugene Wei’s StaaS framing quoted as the lens for why creators chase social capital, alongside his News Feed “social capital boom” passage.