dharmafootsteps wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:12 am
Web 2: Users are the data, corporations own the platform, and the code is closed.
Web 3: Users own their data, contributors own the platform, and the code is open.
You started by quoting this tweet.
The purported difference between Web 2 and Web 3 is who owns the value.
I watched the video you linked and it doesn't help me understand much except that through the use of these collectively created protocols, people can have secure interactions; further, a feature of these protocols is that it allows currency like functions.
It sounds like the wet dream of technologists back in the early days of the internet, and clearly, that cult lives on - technology is going finally free humanity! The guy definitely spoke with religious-like inflections in his speech. "We are the high priests who have so much responsibility for the future!"
The biggest problem with that dream is that human beings are involved and human nature is not going to miraculously change because we have some new technology.
From what the guy in the video was saying, I think his dark vision of the future is much more likely where the internet is a series of closed ecosystems. Actually, it sounds like Apple will finally be able to cage all of their customers as they always envisioned. That's how the money gets made.
The promise of collective ownership, I see a few problems, the least of which will be the proliferation of unique protocols that make their currencies negligible. Its still about user critical mass and I trust FB will figure out how to corral the herd before John Barlowe's spiritual disciples can turn the world on to the liberation and wonders of Web 3.
I also see governments cracking down on this, as China is currently doing for the simple reason it has the potential of destabilizing economies. There is a reason the world relies on the dollar as the reserve currency - sure there is the fact that its backed up by the US economy and implicitly, its guns, but practically speaking, its a common baseline for people from various countries with different currencies. The US is not going to give up its place as the reserve currency. Once it becomes a threat, the US will regulate this aggressively. We go to war over oil. The US government, once it catches on to what kind of threat this is will try to control it or burn it to the ground to stop it.
Sure, this will lead to some amazing innovations, but it will be the same old people owning and making money off of it after a while. I don't know how that will happen, but betting against the house always loses in the end.