Tech visionaries argue about Web3.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted last week that the Web3 idea is not a force to democratize the web, but rather a tool for venture capitalists. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen blocked it on Twitter. Elon Musk once said that Web3 is just an exaggeration and he doesn't get it.
Web3 is everywhere. And yet few people understand what it is about.
It makes sense. The concept is vague and confusing, and even fans disagree with what Web3 is.
Web1 (formerly Web 1.0) was the Internet from the beginning until around 2004, and Web2 (also known as Web 2.0) was from around 2004 to the present day. Web2 has enabled massive person-to-person interaction - social, business, political - mostly mediated by large corporations with ultimate control over those interactions intended to benefit users through surveillance capitalism - the monetization of personal data.
Web3 (invented by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014) is easily confused with Web 3.0, the "semantic web."
Others incorporate the equally nebulous idea of "metaverse" into the Web3 mix.
Yes, it is confusing. But a clear definition is possible: in general, Web3 is a possible future Internet where all data and all content is stored in blockchains, is tokenized or managed and can be accessed in distributed peer-to-peer networks. to democratize the Internet, put power in the hands of content creators and take control away from governments and companies.
(If this mission sounds familiar, you should do it. That was the idea behind the original Internet, with its Internet Protocol and Domain Name System. The decentralized nature of the Internet was meant to erase borders and put power in Users' hands. Remember? If not, this is what John Perry Barlow wrote in 1996.)
Web3 sounds like a great idea, especially for crypto enthusiasts, tech libertarians, and venture capitalists looking to make the next big bet.
Why Web3 is irrelevant
You are reading this, which means you are a tech pro. As part of your job, you need to know what is happening in technology today and in the future. But with each passing year, the biggest buzzwords point to increasingly nonsensical ideas. So, reader, be careful.
The two biggest buzzwords in technology today, "metaverse" and "Web3", describe platforms that don't exist, shouldn't exist even by boosters for at least a decade, and probably never will.
Of the top 100 concerns for tech professionals, Web3 is 101st.
Do not be confused. Blockchains, NFTs, distributed networks, cryptocurrencies, and related concepts are important. But Web3 doesn't.
People don't talk about Web3 because it is happening or will happen. They do it because they are part of that minority with an ideological commitment to blockchains and the ideals of Web3, or they hope to make a lot of money.
Because tech companies that make the right first bets can reach trillion dollar valuations (Apple could hit $ 3 trillion in a matter of weeks) and individual tech visionaries can be worth hundreds of billions of dollars (the value Elon Musk net worth is €). 253,8 billion), intense competition has emerged to stay ahead of the Next Big Thing by pushing the boundaries of credulity.
Web3 supporters will tell you that existing digital assets based on the Ethereum blockchain are the beginnings of Web3. But it's the Silicon Valley marketing push at work: always combine your small investment with an incredibly large project. (C'est pourquoi Musk ne se contente pas de dire qu'il enverra un jour une fusée sur Mars – he enverra un millon de personnes sur Mars d'ici 28 ans.) Les investisseurs de la Silicon Valley ne peuvent pas s'en avoid.
The truth is that it will be fundamentally impossible to gain universal acceptance from users, businesses, and others on a blockchain-based Internet. Put the illusions aside and watch the preferences of Internet users reveal themselves.
We already have decentralized social networks like Mastodon that offer users an alternative to social networks owned by large companies. But the public largely ignores them and instead chooses to spend all their time on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and, in China, WeChat.
And blockchain is unlikely to appeal to the majority of users or solve the problems that plague the internet today. Blockchain has been proposed as a core technology for tracing information back to its source, for example by authenticating it and allowing readers to avoid information from questionable sources.
Unfortunately, the problem with fake news is that many news consumers either don't care where the news comes from or prefer the news from what you and I would consider unsavory sources. Many, for example, would use blockchain authentication technology to block news from the New York Times and Atlantic, and instead get all of their information from 4chan.
The problem with fake news today and in the future is that a large part of the population has been misled into believing that real news is fake news and that fake news is real news. Blockchain authentication can't help.
Big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and others won't sign up to be replaced by Web3 apps and services. Therefore, it is an obstacle.
Dorsey is also right. Venture capitalists who invest in what they call Web3 startups want those small businesses to grow into large companies, all based on the idea that Web3 will not be controlled by large companies.
Proponents of Web3 have all kinds of optimistic ideas that involve everyone's participation. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) are made up of users, each of whom has a stake in the company. DAO enthusiasts boast of getting tons of investment. But investors will want their pound of meat. They invest to earn tons of money. They will make tons of money by using the power of their investment to drive these businesses to profit, not by giving users control.
Supporters of Web3 want to model the entire web in the world of Bitcoin. But Bitcoin itself is far from egalitarian. A new Baystreet study has found that around 0.01% of Bitcoin holders control 27% of all Bitcoin in circulation. In other words, as Baystreet points out, the Bitcoin economy is much less egalitarian than the dollar economy.
Why Web3 Probably Won't Happen
It is one thing to have blockchain-based tokenized services running on the web. It is quite another thing to replace the existing infrastructure. The first is unavoidable. The latter, unlikely.
I do not attack or defend the objectives of Web3, nor the underlying technologies that are offered. I'm just saying that the goals are practically impossible to achieve and that the underlying technologies will exist without the web evolving into Web3. I'm saying that I haven't learned anything about Web3 that, even remotely, makes it attractive to everyday users, who actually want the Internet to be controlled by gatekeepers and governments. It is unclear how, on a decentralized Web3 website, users would be protected against crime and harassment, for example.
As with all false predictions, human nature is not taken into account here. It turns out that people don't want to take their food in pill form.
The main thing is that, despite the talk, Web3 does not happen. And you can safely ignore it.
Copyright © 2021 IDG Communications, Inc.