The volume of posts about Web3 reached critical mass, which prompted me to set aside some time to check out what all the brouhaha is about.
The definition of Web3 varies greatly depending on whom you ask and the opinions about its virtues or sins are highly polarized. While the ideals in the Web3 manifesto of sorts (“decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data, identity and destiny”) are definitely appealing, the means of achieving those ideals are not clear. And the founding fathers seem to be mostly attached to the cryptocurrency project Ethereum, which I’m sure is not at all suspicious.
Many outspoken software engineers came out with passionate criticism of Web3, one author calling it “unregulated casino that literally burns our planet to the ground” and another plainly referring to it with the word that would cause the corporate mail filters not to deliver you this awesome Nerdletter.
For the nerds, it is easy to get seduced by the promise of cutting-edge technology. But there isn’t much more to it than the good old blockchain, the tech without a business use case. (Case in point: much touted just a few years ago SAP Leonardo is already history.)
Without a doubt, there are many web-related issues, such as FAANG training their “Eye of Sauron” on everyone’s private data, or a global disruption caused by a service outage at a single Cloud provider. But the solution for it is not the cryptocurrency cult. Don’t assume that Web3 is automatically better than 2 or 1 just because the number is higher. JP
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