Is Web 3 BS?
Will this change the internet forever?
In the beginning, there was Web 1… and for a while, it was good. The web was soon elevated to Web 2 and now, well… things are really starting to get interesting. Everyone loves the idea of putting the web back into the hands of the people but many worry that this promise may be too good to be true.
If you’re old like me you can remember your AOL account. AOL is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City that was founded in 1985. It was essentially a walled garden of curated content. That was an example of Web 1 and it was fascinating but few people, back then, could imagine the online activities of the average person today. The Web 2 era is the era of social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on. Users can not only browse but also create content. Currently, The Web is home to some 1.7 billion websites that are used by almost 5 billion people around the world. This scale would have been crazy to even dream of 20 years ago. In addition to publishing content, Web 3 allows the users to stake ownership of content and to govern organizations and communities all on decentralized networks of virtual nodes like the Ethereum Virtual Machine, for example.
Will we see such rapid growth and of scale and adoption of Web 3? Or is Elon Musk right?
It’s important to note that Web 3 is in no way a threat to any previous iterations of the web that currently thrive online. Many crypto-bros out there will say that cryptocurrency is growing faster than the internet was in the ’90s but crypto and Web 3 are built on top of the internet. The goal is to integrate an “Internet of Value” into the way we do things already. How can we do this? There are more and more examples every day. In the very week that I am publishing this blog, Kickstarter announced a project that will merge blockchain into a very familiar idea. It’s hatching a standalone company to build a crowdfunding system much like Kickstarter but based on blockchain technology. When it’s ready, Kickstarter will switch its own service to the new one, and the new company will make the tools available for anyone to generate crowdfunding.
So what problems do people like Elon see with Web3? Here are a few.
- Scalability
- Adoption
- Censorship
Scalability: Layer 2 Ethereum transactions, ETH2, and Solana are all examples of projects that are well underway and reduce transaction fees, transaction times, and computational energy needed to sustain the networks.
On a compute basis, blockchain networks don’t scale except by becoming the very same plutocratic and centralized systems they allegedly were designed to replace. There is an absurd cost to trying to do censorship resistant computation — Stephen Diehl — “Web 3 is Bullshit”
I think what Stephen Diehl is trying to say here is partly true, however, what he may be missing is what was described earlier when I said that Web 3 seeks to integrate with existing systems. In fact, Web 3 can only exist alongside the mass networks and servers that we already have. Most data creation and data sharing will always occur on the networks, data centers, and infrastructure that we currently use but Web 3 seeks to add functionality and features that I think most people want like ownership, privacy, and security. This could be possible with a hybrid system that uses both “on-chain” and “off-chain” networks to be able to manage data while using a blockchain whenever needed.
Adoption: The main driver of Web 3 use right now is “Defi” or decentralized finance. There are billions of unbanked adults in the world and this technology gives those people access to peer-peer cash payments and financial products. Of course, Defi isn't enough to reach mass adoption at the scale some are expecting. Metaverse, social media, and gaming applications are all possibilities for the future.
Censorship: The plain truth about it is that there is no plan for censorship. One major problem that we have today is that the tech giants can, without a fair trial, just decide to ban a person or organization and there's nothing we can do about it. This is actually a strength of Web 3. It is truly a free and open Internet. We all want more privacy, security, and ownership of our online activities. I had the Web 3 “aha moment” the very first time that I logged in to a Web 3 app, also known as a dapp or decentralized application. Web 2 apps always ask for an email, password, username, security question, phone number, recovery email… it gets intrusive. On Web 3 you simply connect your wallet to the website and you're logged in. That's it. You are your wallet address. This is just as convenient for the user and even more secure thanks to cryptography.
Whether the Web 3 evangelists like it or not, we’re stuck with the centralized networks and tech-giants of M.A.A.M.A., for now. And like it or not, people want a way to participate online in a way that is more private, secure, free, and open like the web that Web 3 offers.
