Thread by @anildash

This is a very good overview of the web3 hype & reality for folks who haven’t had a chance to (or haven’t been interested to) look at it yet. I’ll emphasize some key points and vital ideas that are worth amplifying…

https://twitter.com/pkafka/status/1488506219291631620

First, web3 advocates ritually talk about these platforms as “censorship resistant”, always using the example of deplatforming Trump and other fascists as the risk — not marginalized people who’ve been silenced. Deplatforming bad actors is *best* thing the current web, not a bug.

Second, the massive (billions & billions of dollars) investments in web3 only make sense if there will be new winning companies every bit as dominant as Facebook, etc. If the winners from web3 were going to be lots of individual creators, these investments would be foolish.

If they simply said “we don’t like Facebook and Google having this much control, so we are trying to put new companies in control”, that would be honest. (Albeit still gross.) But when the rhetoric separates from the reality, hide your wallet. And your data.

Most importantly, assertions are being made at a technical level that are not true, and that may *never* be true. Imagine if someone made a spreadsheet and said it could add numbers, but it didn’t do it, and then they defensively reacted with “you’re a hater who doesn’t get it”.

Current web3 tech does, however, effectively financialize every transaction and interaction; DAOs are less likely to become a form of governance than to simply be a way of forcing white collar workers into the gig economy the same as blue collar workers have been.

The pipe dream of carrying loot between video games, for example, is absurd because the barrier there, as everywhere, is about people, business incentives and experience — not tech. The blockchain will not magically put Mario’s fireballs in Call of Duty. Nobody wants this.

Basic principles: start from the problem you’re trying to solve, and identify which group of people you’re trying to solve it for, and who will benefit. Identify technologies which could help. Verify that it helps address the issue without unexpected downsides. Test & iterate.