71–80 of 319 posts
No mention of the actual distributed web protocols like IPFS or Dat as far as I could tell.
Have I massively missed something or has the crypto community just co-opted the name web3 for their own non-web related stuff? How does the web factor in to crypto?
As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for the life of me discern what's of actual value from what is a fabrication in the pile of technologies put forward. It doesn't help that I personally have yet to see a use for a blockchain which isn't replicating an existing financial instrument while trying to avoid the eyes of the state.
I’m sure there is some good things in the middle of it all but I respect the authors of this article for having the courage to delve into the whole steaming pile. I certainly do not have it.
It's a good article. Much to think about. I'm not sure that "blockchain" is central to "Web3". "Web3" may be augmented reality, which doesn't need a blockchain.
The right comparison may not be with past tech revolutions. It may be to organizational evolutions like monarchy to democracy, women entering the workplace, the invention of the limited liability corporation etc. In each case there were people who thought it was unnecessary.
I suspect what makes Web3 appear extra contentious is that it divides core members of the middle class. Like artists for eg. Artists tend to be reliably anti-tech initially, taking pride in being socially middle class but economically underclass unless supported by other means.
Artists still largely depend on patronage but now are less beholden to institutions/expert tastemakers (museums, grants, commercial art buyers like movies) or potentially tyrannical cohesive crowds based on ideological aesthetics (Patreon style). Web3 loosens the grip of both.
Web3 is Crowds3 too. We focus too much on authority figures and institutions. Crowds evolve too.
Crowd1 = geographic scene in a city that could ostracize you
Crowd2 = filter-bubble online crowd that can cancel you
Crowd3 = skin-in-the-game crowd that doesn’t subsume individuals
[credit to https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1463182365555970049]
‘Web3’ is just new window dressing on the same old crypto casino. “Get rich quick!” is the selling point
Exactly. If Bitcoin had not gone "to the moon", all of this would be a tiny niche, like Chaum's DigiCash was. The problem is all the junk riding Bitcoin's coattails. At some point, probably soon, the bottom will fall out of at least part of this. NFTs are already crashing. That's not too visible, because there's no "market price" across different items. But you can look at sales on OpenSea, and notice that the resale…
I don't think "if this didn't happen then this wouldn't have happened" is a real argument, it's just a statement. True for just about everything. It's possible I'm misinterpreting and you just mean it as a statement?
Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…
Meanwhile, Cash App, Apple Pay, and Stripe have done more for fintech in the past month than all other cryptocurrency technologies combined in the last decade.
Quite possibly the difference between people who are hostile vs favorably disposed to Web3 is whether or not they think traditional orgs work fine or need improvement. Frustration with traditional organizational pathologies is not universal. The right comparison may not be with past tech revolutions. It may be to organizational evolutions like monarchy to democracy, women entering the workplace, the invention of the…
Also, I think less than 0.01% of 'artists' have ever heard of Web3, even most people in Tech haven't really hard of it or couldn't describe it in any meaningful way.
Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…
Not everyone has access to Venmo or free checking accounts. And not every behavior the state is trying to restrict is nefarious.
Hi all — I wrote these notes with my colleagues at PSL while trying to wrap our heads around the madness that is Web3/Crypto. I’m an engineer by background and sort of a skeptic by nature; I think of this piece as a collection of loosely connected, hopefully pragmatic opinions from a builder’s perspective.
Great notes! I am curious, what language / tech stack would be most promising in this space?