I don't understand Web3...
Am I the only one?
I just spent the past 8 hours reading tons of "articles" - which really didn't say much of anything - and I don't feel like I understand the term at all.
I get Web1/Web2 paradigm, but Web3 just isn't being explained well to me by anyone and I get the feeling it's just a marketing term people are taking advantage of at the moment.
I don't want to believe this, but I'm having a hard time feeling like there are any good resources out there explaining the technology/term.
No one who has written about Web3 has really done so in a way the average person can understand. If someone knows someone who has done a good job, I'd love to see it or read these resources.
Is this obfuscation on purpose to keep people out? Is it just due to the nascency of the movement?
Or is everyone in the Web3 space just bullshitting everyone else? I want to be able to participate in the conversation, but it's hard when there isn't any information out there available on what Web3 is or what it will entail.
I'm just here to assure you that you're not the only one.
I tried to find a way to apply the "Benefits" of blockchain to any of my existing projects or ideas, couldn't really find anything.
Its not relevant to every project; just because a new technology is there, doesn’t mean we need to stick it everywhere.
I agree.
That's why it's not "the future of the web", just another technology that can be useful for some products.
well, if web2 was the future of the web over web1, then you know ))
Or, It’s not the future of the web, ergo it’s not really web3. People who want it to be web3 call it web3, the rest just call it a load of BS.
The problem is that people are thinking we are going to take existing web products and update them with blockchain.
In reality, web3 is a total new ecosystem around blockchain. It will have touchpoints with web2 but is not a replacement.
The fact that so many hackers just decided it’s a scam and don’t want their mind changed is exactly why it represents such huge opportunity, less competition. Look around outside of tech nerd circles and there’s so much more passion for the space.
No the problem is, it is a scam.
Here’s a little taste..
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
So someone made a website that highlights bad things that happen on web3.
You realize that proves nothing right? If I made a website documenting every time someone got scammed by email would that somehow prove email is a scam?
There is a ton of work to be done around things like security in web3! Scams are bad and security is super important. You would think a site built around looking for potential business opportunities would see that as an opportunity rather than a reason to hate on stuff other people are building.
Sure thing :)
Linking to a troll take isn’t very compelling evidence to justify labeling an entire growing branch of information technology a scam.
It looks pretty compelling to me. Not sure I’d call it a troll - sarcastic, yes but also factual.
It's about as compelling as Clifford Stoll's take on the web was in 1995. Hopefully the author will be as gracious as Clifford was.
https://thenextweb.com/news/newsweek-1995-buy-books-newspapers-straight-intenet-uh
👍🏻
From the many conversations I've had with my friends and people outside of the crypto world, this space looks scary. The term "Crypto" is too often associated with "scams" and "speculation," and it feels intimidating to jump into this space without any previous knowledge.
The terms "Web3" or "Decentralized Web" are slowly taking over "crypto." Web3 is a broader term that comes without the 2017 baggage of the word "Crypto," and that is more reminiscent of the evolution of the internet as we know it today, solving the most pressing problems of Web2 platforms through Crypto mechanisms.
I found the essays "Wtf is Web3" and "Why Web3" to be very insightful.
Web3 is a broad term that englobes DeFi, Social Tokens, DAOs, NFTs etc..
I'm the most bullish about DAOs and Social Tokens, as it has the power to change the way we're working in our daily lives. I've written an essay for Business Insider explaining why Social Tokens might be the next revolution in Web3 in a way the average person can understand. You can check it out here.
Finally, I couldn't recommend you more to check OdysseyDAO, a community creating high-quality, 100% free web3 education. You can also check one of my latest essays explaining Web3 Basics.
After spending eight months in this space, I fully realized the potential of this technology, but I must admit it took long months before understanding it. I truly hope this helps, and please ask me any questions you may have regarding the space.
Haven't read thoroughly through all of the links you shared, but wanted to say thank you for writing it up!
helpfull. thanks :)
Very helpful links, EliotC. Thanks for sharing!
This comment was deleted a year ago.
Agreed.
Also, if you read any online-explanations like "What is Web2 vs. Web3?" you'll see that they basically mis-define the current web every time.
According to every one of these articles, the current web is one of gigantic platforms which control content. "Web 2.0 was Twitter and Facebook", they say.
Huh?
This notion is of course, idiotic. Anyone who defines the current web landscape as "Twitter and Facebook" and other mega-platforms has a limited point of view. It's the point of view of someone who spends their days doing something called "Tweeting" on a particular website I never visit. Or it's the point of view of someone who posts things for "Likes" on a platform which appeals primarily to teenagers.
The reason indiehackers often scoff at Web3 is that we live in the de-platformed world already. We already build. And we already control what we build.
The supposed virtue of a web "built by and for content builders" seems a whole lot like the web we already use.
The notion that "You'll be able to control your content" doesn't seem all that incredible to someone who runs their own profitable web business outside of (lame) mega-platforms.
And sorry... but blockchain, tokens and smart contracts really aren't that cool or usable either when it comes to the vast majority of sites, online services, businesses and content types. eg: I have seen vastly more articles written about the virtues of smart contracts than I've seen successfully implemented use-cases.
Yesterday I had a post here posted quite similar to yours. Spending a few years in the crypto space as a full-time employee I can say that the only innovation happening there is the price movement of different digital assets.
Since 2017 no blockchain has made significant progress to be actually used in the real world.
Here's a fine article by Signal Messenger founder on NFT's and Web3.
https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
Same, I got very excited in 2017 during ICO boom, went full-time on it and was doing it till mid 2019 just to be completely disillusioned that its a narrative being pushed because a lot of people invested a lot of money.
Frankly I bought into the whole decentralize everything mindset and I loved the philosophy, but from the technical perspective its just fluff honestly...
There are probably 5% of the use cases where it makes sense, the rest is just marketing.
Happened exactly the same to me.
Spent few years building CMC alternative: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/coinspace-2
Until the traffic died out during the bear market and raised capital came to an end.
Care to elaborate on what you mean when you say "in the real world"? Do you mean used by large, enterprise businesses that require high throughput, or something else? Really liked your post BTW, nice write-up.
Blockchain technology is slow, the data amount that can be stored on it is significantly limited - Ethereum, Bitcoin.
You have blockchains that are faster, but then they're struggling with centralization - an example would be Solana.
Since 2017 blockchains have barely gotten faster. If Web3 (whatever that means) is going to be what VCs are telling us, blockchains need to make such progress that we haven't seen yet.
Yeah, it's a good point. Lots of work to do balancing decentralization with throughput I'd imagine. Have you looked into Avalanch yet? I'm liking their approach to that problem.
I just came to post this too :)
Web3 as it is defined today is not much more than marketing fluff that is being pushed to continue the cryptocurrency pyramid scheme.
Some scammy stuff out there for sure. Although lots of exciting projects as well.
Do you not see any value in peer-to-peer electronic transfer of data? Or does cryptocurrency mean something different to you? Genuinely curious!
Do you mean like Napster had it 24 years ago?
yes, exactly.
Its called BitTorrent :)
To be completely clear: you don’t need “web3” to do peer to peer data transfer. And, in many (and likely most) cases, using a blockchain as a p2p medium is a really bad idea.
Here's one way to understand it: https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html
Tim Berners-Lee's original idea for semantic web (also called web3 ) makes a lot more sense to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
But the blockchain idea has definitely taken the title.
Wow. They took the name of a visionary idea and slapped it on a pyramid scheme.
I actually recently tweeted about this but didn't get any response...
I need to get better at Twitter.
You now have 1 pity like from someone even worse at Twitter
haha thanks
Yeah :/
Semantic web was “Web 3.0”. It failed.
Decentralized web is “Web3”. It’s already approaching a trillion dollars in market cap.
Seeing you didn’t like the other link (above) perhaps this one (just now open for non subscribers) is more balanced for your taste, and it addresses the decentralised future of which you mention.
https://stratechery.com/2022/opensea-raises-money-bans-nfts-openseas-value-cryptos-aggregators
This author got the name right—3, not 3.0.
The last paragraph is a bit ignorant though. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind reasons through many examples of things humans value only due to their collective belief in them. Currency itself is one example, and so are corporations and even nations.
Source please.
Are you including Bitcoin in your definition of Web3? ... Because that would be ridiculous of course.
It's not my definition. It's the name of a library in Ethereum and the term was coined by Gavin Wood, a cofounder of Ethereum and the founder of the Web3 Foundation.
https://web3py.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/v1.2.9/
https://docs.web3j.io/4.8.7/
Of course. I'm not questioning the term Web3.
I'm questioning the trillion dollar capitalization you cited.
The only way I think you can say Web3 is capitalized to that level is to define Web3 as being all things crypto.
Ah, gotcha. It is a bit open to interpretation, but I'd generally count Ethereum, its L2 chains, DeFi, DeSo and NFTs as well as companies built on those platforms. Solana is much smaller but definitely powers the same types of applications.
I would not count Bitcoin, Dogecoin the countless other Bitcoin clones, or stable coins.
Web3 is a vague term to indicate an allegedly new era of the Internet. Many suggest it should solve current problems such as centralization of services and privacy. However, web3, as it is now, doesn't solve the issues.
I recommend reading My first impressions of web3.
[Edit] The article isn't mine, it's just such a title.
Best analogy is its like the content of websites ie whatever is in the server, distributed and accessed like torrents.
That's the technical side of it anyways, but what's bigger is the paradigm shift in thinking.
It's about moving away from big companies dictating your experience. Through Web 3 you could get an digital identity and structure contracts that allow you to be paid to have ads served to you or be able to log in on any website without credentials or sensitive data in another server.
You are the owner of your digital footprint.
It has a long way to go, so very speculative, but same as the beginning of the internet, no one knew or could imagine how it would change lives. The risk of investing is assymmetrical with little downside (you lose your investment) and massive upside (early investor in the next internet & foundation for the next wave of innovation)
You will not be getting "away" from big companies with Web3. At all. Don't kid yourself.
Somewhat interesting technology with no practical real world use case, propped up by people in the middle or upper tiers of a pyramid scheme or just simple folks caught in a sunk cost fallacy who don't want to admit they have invested too much time / money in something worthless.
What a depressingly cynical take.
^ this
"Web 3" is really just a Marketing Term which gets thrown at all things blockchain.
And to be real, there is no such thing as "Web 3" without "Web 2", at least as long Smart Contracts aren't able to render HTML lmao.
Web3 is the name of a key library in Ethereum.
Web 2.0 was all focused around social web apps like Digg, Flickr and Delicious. They were snappy due to using AJAX instead of full page loads on every user input. That doesn’t mean they weren’t using HTTP and other old school web protocols, though. It also doesn’t mean that old sites like Craigslist or phpbb forums died, either.
The same is true with this technical revolution.
But everyone using Web3 as a marketing term doesn't mean to refer to the library. And there are unfortunately so many dubious projects out there which misuse this word to make more money in a quick and dirty way. The technology itself is really cool if used in the right way, but there's a huge disconnect between the decentralized theory and reality right now. E.g. I as a developer would focus more on protocols like IPFS instead of blockchain when building decentralized apps, but the truth is, it's not so easy to make money with that.
hey so i think a lot of is just crypto bros pushing their coins, but also some change in structures. I may be biased but I think Jay's take on self-certifying web is most promising https://twitter.com/arcalinea/status/1474124531895713792
web3 is basically web2 but has a major component of the distributed blockchain in it's model.
A few pros are privacy, security and a community-trusted proof for payments.
Users can use / authenticate with their web3 wallet and start using your product.
Wow that sounds absolutely nothing like using a credit card. :D
I know way too little about this but I’ve read about identity management and thought it sounded really good. Basically because of your key-pair you only have one identity on the whole “internet” (dApps I guess).
You don’t need to create username and passwords everywhere and you can attach things to your identity like profile pic and other settings that are then used on all apps you use.
Like I said. Do not know too much about this but that would be a real cool concept and something that could “change” the space.
My view is that web.3 is about your application or website working with data that is stored on a blockchain aka a worldwide distributed database. All existing block transactions are immutable and globally recorded. The database cannot be turned off (or easily hacked because of consensus). Also new block transactions cannot be appended by anyone that doesn't hold a private key (or valid claim/role) ie. you. That is pretty much it I think. Sure it means that crypto currencies can be created or non fungible tokens. I don't think it means all data is readable by everyone hosting a copy of the chain data either because of crypto. Let me know if this is wrong, but I think I have it in simple terms? Oh in addition its not suitable in a very large number of use cases ie. business data, where organisations may want and need sole control to be able to rollback the database to a point in time, modify already committed blocks because they are wrong or simply give a temporal copy to someone else.
It's not the first time that major tech hubs have managed to make a specific trend explode. I mean, throwing a lot of money at something is usually going to do that.
Crypto itself goes way back, or at least more than a decade now.
This new "Web3" stuff, I don't think it's going to mean as much as some people would like to believe. Because true transformation - as implied by all the crypto people - to a decentralized environment is not going to happen so fast, if at all.
I think if we put aside all the hyperbole, all the NFT crap, all the noise - I think we will see some great applications/software come out of this "boom". Maybe even new ways of doing things.
But I don't expect people to abandon their livelihood (Web2) because they think that Blockchain is going to transform our lives. It won't.
I don't think anyone suggests that web3 will replace web2, just like web1 didn't disappear when web apps came along.
Check https://www.odysseydao.com/
They have a great collection of approachable articles
There are a lot of articles about web3, and most of them are describing it differently; which is funny 😂
I don't know where I heard this, but in the simplest terms:
web3 is just basically a website that uses the blockchain to make data/info/content decentralized - meaning the people own the data, they can see it publicly on the blockchain.
Ok, I understand that - but how will this impact creators?
I don't see what the benefits are to creators with web3 - sure the internet will be more decentralized and people will earn more from their content, but I don't clearly see how this will occur. Are any platforms making progress and have they provided details yet? I'm not trying to undermine the concept or promise of Web3, but I just don't see a lot of available information out there that isn't by someone who has a web3 project.
Can Spotify, YT, FB and others exist in a Web3 environment? Or is it an either/or situation.
...rather than be mined for personal data that's sold to the highest bidder ... users can monetize their data & feedback immediately, doing what they'd like with the value they create, i.e. swap, stake, or HODL.
check out https://mirror.xyz/
Theory : a benefit for creators is they will be able to move their data to (or more accurately share their data with) a different platform without losing their creator "capital". Think getting hacked off with indiehackers and deciding to go to a different forum. You would not lose your network, nor your posts, etc.
I don't see Web3 as meaning people will earn more from their content.
Not only can Spotify, YT, FB, etc, exist in Web3, they (or alternatives) are needed and would emerge from a pure soup of Web3.
Web3 is coming. Be certain. Seek to understand. Just like any other major emerging technology it takes a while to grasp the significance but there is an advantage to "seeing" early.
Start with Blockchain. This simple concept has made possible a permanent and immutable register with enough security to enable bits (1's & 0's) to hold value. How else could a digital "file" like a bitcoin be worth tens of thousands of dollars?
Don't be confused though. Crypto is like investing in startup companies during emerging tech. A lot will fail and values will skyrocket and crash. A lot of damage will be done around those who strike it rich.
And NFTs? Well, once again the Blockchain enables Provenance for ownership of digital goods. You can prove, via the blockchain registry, dates and times and attributions and ownership. Digital goods have never had this capability. That, alone, is revolutionary.
DeFi is made possible by Blockchain because of the permanent and immutable registry and security provided. Smart Contracts are simple concepts built upon Blockchain that make all kinds of new things possible. The Blockchain provides "trust" that was once required via third parties (like banks). Again, revolutionary.
Look no further than "Play to Earn" via NFTs, Smart Contracts, and MarketPlaces for a revolutionary technological shift that has impacted an entire industry. This, alone, is enormous. The gaming industry will never be the same again.
Decentralization is made possible by the Trust provided by Blockchains that are "set free" while DAOs govern the system and P2P Storage makes it possible for independent entities to exist without centralization.
How will it impact you? It will. A central theme is Open Source and Decentralization. Also, Personal Identity ownership outside of third parties will emerge. How much will it impact you? Who knows.
My recommendation is to become aware and learn what you can. Skepticism is well founded. But to disregard the Trillion plus dollars this arena has developed in just a dozen years or so is foolish. Not to mention the thousands of companies and very smart people working in this space who are probably not stupid. Need more confidence that there is something here? Follow the money as there is nothing hotter in Venture Capital right now.
Web3 has me excited. I'm all in. I see it. Clearly. It's just a learning curve so don't give up before you see it, too. Or just look away.
I was never jumping into threads like this and posting repeatedly that the whole thing is a scam as some here are doing, but I was pretty skeptical up until this year.
I just didn't get the point of it or see what was special. It wasn't until starting to dig in and learn how blockchains work and what the technical building blocks were that it clicked and I started to see how big of deal some of the current advances could be as they gain wider adoption.
Excellent! Skepticism is healthy when coupled with open intellectual investigation. Hype and condemnation are expected as people express their beliefs. Sincerity is what is most important.
While it is probably true that the truth will end up being different than what all of the prognosticators envision there is SOMETHING happening. And the underlying blockchain technology, which is simple to understand, will enable this change.
Kudos!
Ha, you’re a brighter one than me, then! It wasn’t until I really spent a week going through Grokking Bitcoin that the Merkel Trees, Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets, and the basics of Elliptic Curve Cryptography made much sense.
That book with zero code and lots of supporting diagrams was super helpful!
SquishyCoder, I'm a fan! Thanks!
You're not the only one. The lack of concrete examples of mass-applied blockchain technology that does not rely on a centralized entity is what puzzles me.
Every time I ask for concrete examples, the community comes up with abstract fluff, and that's raising my bullshit flag. Maybe I'm just getting old.
That being said, I desperately want to believe the hype, but I can't.
Blockchains are probably here to stay, but I fear it will lead to more centralization – not less.
Web3 is an umbrella term. Few examples,
Decentralization of financial assets.
Rewarding early adopters with coins. (alternative to points)
Raising money with coins (because ICO got the bad name)
More control over data for users (locking with crypto)
etc.
As far as I understand the biggest advantage of web3 (outside of crypto which can provide banking functionality to countries with corrupted governments or no legit financial intutiions) are NFTs.
Not the apes or other digital art that is trending today but the concept of "digital ownership" that can be confirmed by almost anyone.
In the current web - how can you actually prove that you own something?
You really cant without trusted intermediaries, with web 3 you kind of can (There was a story a while back when a guy sold his apartment ownership papers as an NFT ).
Obviously right now we don't have the infrastructure to support real useful cases - and that's why I understand why web3 might look a bit useless. It's kind of like when smartphones came out - the leap that you can use built-in GPS and build something like Uber wasn't supper obvious at the beginning.
But IMO the biggest thing is digital ownership.
Also, I think a lot of people are forgetting that 99% of the end-users wont care if its a web3 or a web2 project - even if the project has some built-in privacy (i.e. duck duck go vs google) and that adoption will be slow with little to no incentive for existing companies to migrate.
Other things that people have mentioned
I am no expert on crypto or web3, but I had the same question as you did. Comparing web2 vs web3 what can you build in web3 that you cant in web2?
And for now, the answer is niche financial things. Maybe in the future someone figures out a non "deep state" application to web3.
I've tried to answer this question to the best of my knowledge & beliefs here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/web3-my-attempt-to-explain-7dfe0fa0a6
I believe its better to watch Web3 based projects out there. I saw some good applications that will change how the web currently works (like domain names). Even though Web3 currently is a structural difference that a regular users wouldn't care much, it won't replace Web2. The internet is a distributed network of computers/devices but currently we're relying on central points to access it. Servers store data centrally, you send your personal data to a central place. Your computer resolves IP address of a server you want to access through central Domain name systems. I saw several projects (with Web3 architecture) trying to solve this architectural problems. I believe there is more potential than architectural changes in Web3 that I cannot foresee right now. But I don't think it will replace central solutions because we still need them.
I can totally relate but, in case they help, last week the IH community shared some pretty good resources to get started with building web3 product here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/whats-the-best-way-to-get-started-with-building-web-3-products-34675c2170
+1 here, I feel the same way.
There's already been some great answers here, but I'll throw my 2 cents as well.
I like to think about web3.0 as a new protocol capable of doing trustless commitments. Instead of trusting an authority (e.g a bank) for some kind of social contract (e.g I believe that I have 1000$ because the bank says so) you trust the underlying mechanism of a blockchain (basically math) such as Ethereum, which is capable to accomplish the same kinds of commitments, but without needing to trust the other party to uphold their side of the deal.
The tools used to accomplish that are smart contracts, tokens, decentralized organizations, etc. Unfortunately the media, corporations & the internet started throwing around these words everywhere, thus diluting the meaning behind them.
Given that this is still a new world ready to explore & develop (as the Internet was back in 2000), a lot of scams & shady projects appeared.
I'll end with some resources which helped me better understand these concepts:
A quick example about Web3 applied to SaaS nowadays.
-Log in with your Metamask/TrustWallet/etc wallet and hold xxx amount of our token to use our application.
-Pay with crypto directly.
The real thing here is that descentralized startups can create a token and fund their project within investors from crypto world.
Also there are amazing projects such as Helium or Holochain that will bring serverless apps not depending on a single datacenter.
There's definitely A LOT of bullshit. I have yet to find any problem that can't technically be solved by the traditional central server model. So far the only actual use I've identified in crypto/NFTs is 1. as a store of value like gold (bitcoin) and 2. for bragging, sort of like wearing designer fashion brands (which I actually think is a legitimate use case). It's also been useful to the art world because it's an easy way to monetize and prove ownership for digital works of art. Prior to NFTs I don't think the major auction houses/museums had figured this out and therefore had been shying away from digital art.
Surprised when I see popular threads like these on IH.
I figured this community would be open to crypto. Especially its characteristics...
Peer to peer payments - Yes please! Like the old days of Napster :P
But seriously I'd like to send money to family across the globe in Indonesia instantaneously, with low fees. Much better than using banks which can be slow and expensive. All powered by open-source smart contracts.
I suggest folks listen to the excellent Acquired episode where they dive into Bitcoin and why crypto, in general, is a much more efficient solution. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/bitcoin
Open-source - this one speaks for itself. Application code and smart contracts are open and free for viewing/forking/building on top of. There's a primordial ooze, (a Cambrian explosion if you will, lol) of code being written, forked, and enhanced. This is happening at a much faster pace than before I'd like to believe. As a developer, I'm jumping in.
Open state/data - IMO this is the crux of crypto/web3. I won't try to explain why this is important. I suggest you take a bit of time to see if this is important to you. It certainly is to me.
DeFi / GameFi - this is the most interesting area of crypto right now. Uniswap’s work on the automated market maker is incredibly important. Read more here: https://docs.uniswap.org/protocol/V2/concepts/core-concepts/swaps. This has enabled GameFi Projects like DeFi Kingdoms and Chikn NFT build staking an yield farming mechanics into their game. A lot of it is the same, but this will evolve. I don’t know about you but playing games and making money sounds pretty good to me.
Bottom line Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi , are brining forward a more open, directly connected web. This will unlock a whole new way to build interesting financial, social, and productivity products. Something IMO tarnished by web2.
I also think us web2 folks will be fine. Plenty of opportunity out there.
Hello.
If you are interested in the blockchain perspective of web 3.0 - here is a good article: https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-web-3-0
If you are interested in the general perspective of web 3.0 - here is a nice article with Gavin Wood in the background:
https://www.wired.com/story/web3-gavin-wood-interview/
If you want to go deeper, I just wrote a 5-minute report about the new players that are building Web 3.0 and some opportunities to invest too for 2022.
https://thecryptojournal.substack.com/p/2022-the-year-of-web-30-tokens-trends
It's basically bullshit but perhaps something good evolves from it as time goes by. I think this is the best description of Web3 for someone who has lived through "Web1/Web2" https://www.kooslooijesteijn.net/blog/web3
Quoting from a16z fintech newsletter:
Twenty years ago, "is it an internet company?" was a common question. Today, almost every company is an internet company. Ten years ago. "is it a mobile company?" was a common but now obsolete question. Similarly, we will soon stop asking "Is it a crypto company?" because most companies - starting with the broader financial services industry - will have a crypto component
20 years ago was 2002, 90% ( if not more) of the big companies were on Internet. 10 years ago was 2012 and nobody was asking about "is it a mobile company" (hardly anyone has asked that no matter the year). All that sounds like rhetoric fluff to push the hype.
Ofcourse they did, remember the dotcom bubble? You only had to add .com to your company name to increase your valuation. And everybody was building apps 10 years ago. It was the future !
I've also been struggling to figure out web3. The end-goal appears to be to decentralize everything so that no one company is in control. That way, nobody can censor, exclude or shut you down (e.g., like AWS did to Parler). I like that goal...
IPFS aims to be a decentralized file storage system, and most of web3 seems to be built on crypto-currencies & blockchain. This is necessary in part, because this is only going to work long-term if people can make money running servers on the decentralized networks.
Beyond that, a lot of web3 talk feels like hype. Or, people in the web3 space are so caught up in it that they don't realize that they're speaking in web3 jargon that only they understand.
I don't "get it" either, I have developed a couple of toy DApps , a while back, before web3 were in the news. My feeling is along the line of Moxie's article (https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html). The saddest part is that there is a cult around anything crypto , that make those people mad when you point out any flaws on the whole thing. Similar to what used to happen back in the days (probably is still a thing) where Rails folks would harass in Twitter anyone that DHH didn't like or criticize. But this time the cult is 100X bigger. Currently NFTs, web3 apps, are not really distributed, there is just a couple of companies cashing out on the hype. I do understand why some people are so defensive of crypto tho, maybe crypto is their only way of getting out of this crazy economic system we have going.
I can agree with you.
Web3 seems quite confusing at first glance and at second glance you really doubt whether you have understood anything at all.
But I have something for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTcrmhskto
I’d like to think, web3 is useful wherever we need a common database, accessible by everyone involved in it.
Sorry to shamelessly self-promote but I am writing a blog post series where I try to break down web3 utility cases, without the excessive hype or excessive skepticism.
https://billprin.com/2022/01/03/real-problems-web3-solves.html
No one understood Web 2 either in its infancy.
One major pusher for Web2 was the hype surrounding it.
Web3 will be realized eventually, for now you can just pick an area (metaverse, blockchain, even perhaps the NFT scam), and you'll be good.
Tim Ferris, Tom Bilyeu and Gary Vee are three sources I've heard discuss web3 with industry insiders. Check out their podcasts on the topic.
You're not the only one...
And it sounds like the articles that you read were in the same boat but wanted to appear to understand it.
It's an evolving thing that ultimately will fly, or crash and burn along with a lot of investors cash.
Probably because "just apply distributed ledger" does it solve any particular problem in an scalable way. Look at the biggest "success cases" in crypto, Coinbase and OpenSea, central authorities that contradict the whole decentralization point. Until I see real use cases, I'm on the scheptic side. There's Axie Infinity, but I've seen so many DeFi games crash and burn on their ponzinomics that I'm not at all bullish on them.
Read https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html
This comment was deleted 2 months ago.
Web3 is internet without "walled gardens."
Tell that the people on exclusive clubs for owning NFTs or to people who have NFTs that only work on certain platforms (Rarible, OpenSea, etc).
You can examine the source code of every single smart contract and the movement of every one of those tokens.
Have you ever wondered why Opensea only charges a 2.5% commission on sales on its platform while Apple, Google Amazon and Steam take 15-40%?
It’s because web3 isn’t just open source. It’s open database. The second Opensea starts gouging its users like a trad web company, someone else will build a clone that doesn’t and all the user accounts, transaction histories and open contracts will appear there just as they did on Opensea. This doesn’t require divulging anyone’s private keys, either. Such an exodus from the App Store or Kindle would be impossible.
That's awesome. I'll explain to my mom that the source code of the contract is viewable. She'll be thrilled.
Are you trying to be rude and combative? Why would you write that?
That's a popular phrase. It's meaningless when you consider that the entire point of Web3 is ultimately ownership -- and with it, access control. Ok so there's no wall. But the garden is still restricted by other means.
The last episode of the Indie Hackers with Li Jin is a goldmine for Web3 quick takes.
https://share.transistor.fm/s/8aa9ebfd
Probs, one of the best episodes lately!
I am very much involved in the space, but I’ve started a while back without much understand around the subject making assumptions and mistakes. Its basically an iteration of technology with use of blockchain for the purpose of decentilization of data, services, revenue, etc. However, I like it way more regardless of some degree of “bullshit” then previously was with terms like cloud, data laking, or other stuff that existed and then became “hot” all of a sudden. In many cases web3 isn’t suitable, some companies and projects abuse the idea, but why care if you are in business to make money, and this is one of those terms that gets you there knowadays. Never before I had investors coming to throw $200-$300k seed at me just for describing them what the project may do. Its an awesome time.
I get that why care if your in business to make money...but how can regular folks understand it?
Is Web3 only accessible to people who already in tech right now? Why should creators care about it at all, it seems like it just a bunch of hot air for the moment - consisting of buzz terms.
Creators should be first ones to understand this, but why do you think all “regular folks” as you mentioned need to get it? Not everyone understands term “cloud” and some don’t know how to send photos they make on their phone.
Go ask creators in https://www.sound.xyz how they feel about raising $10k in the time there songs starts and ends playing and why Andreesen Horowitz funded that project. Not everyone will choose to spend time to understand it, but those that do, already profiting from it and getting enough funds to continue to do what they love: music, art, tech, charity.
Web3 just means "use a blockchain for everything, it's great."
The central premise and main benefit of the blockchain sounded good, it was "it's secure, it can't be etc etc"
However what the central premise is now I don't know.
This might be of help getting started.
View site here: https://web3encyclo.typedream.app/
Live on Producthunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/web3-encyclopedia
I totally agree with this sentence. All I can think about Web3 right now is that it's overrated. If there really is a revolution behind this argument(Web3), I think NFTs and cryptocurrencies censor it for now.
No matter how much research I do about Web3, what I find at the end of the day (article etc.) almost never changes. Security, Privacy, Speed, Peer-to-Peer Authentication. But what are these tags for? how? No one really says anything in detail. The cryptocurrency trend eclipses everything.
For these reasons, I think the most logical thing to do is to mute and remotely monitor Web3. All advertising campaigns will surely end one day.
Web 3 is a trust less decentralised web forced by value and economics. Making new business models possible and crushing old ones.
Who could imagine uber before the smartphone. An example (what we are building) https://attrace.com/, referrals for web3. Promoter promotes a tokenised asset (NFT) and gets a cut for every sale (without a thirt party in between). To me web3 is the next (big) evolution of the internet and how we do business
Here's how I see it:
Web3 is a peer-to-peer network. This means that everyone on the network is hosting content (look into IPFS). Blockchain makes the connections between this content. There's multiple blockchains (Solana, Polygon among the most popular) therefore multiple networks. These blockchains need computer power (mining) to make the 'connections' between content (these connections are actually transactions - information goes from one point in the network to another).
I love talking about this topic. So, in simple terms Web 3 is a more decentralized (NO one person or group controls it), secure, and scalable web/internet. Web 1 was a read only, Web 2 allows you to create content, but in Web 3 you own the web/internet or own some piece of it.
If you feel it doesn't make any sense I'd say you understand it. It's those who don't understand it that shout the loudest.
Web3 is used by people to refer to apps built on top of a blockchain.
It is definitely used as a buzzword right now, but this is not too different from a few years ago when every company was putting "AI" in their description. Does that mean AI is a scam? No, but there are people that will take advantage of a hype cycle.
The main benefit of blockchain and smart contracts is establishing trust between two parties.
The first application of this is transferring money. Sending money to someone is super easy with a crypto wallet, all you need is their address and to hit send. You aren't affected by banks, transaction fees, and delays. Interac transfers can take hours if not days to complete, but a transaction on Ethereum is complete in seconds, and other networks are instant. (Also yes there are high fees on some networks like Ethereum right now, but other networks like Polygon and Solana have near-zero fees, and the tech just keeps getting better)
This then extends to financial apps in general. If you wanted to create a system of loans, credit, etc. You needed to integrate with a ton of complex payment processors, but now new Defi (Decentralized Finance) projects are being launched at a much faster rate. You can see an example of loans with Binance here https://www.binance.com/en/loan
This is mostly because there is an agreed-on way of executing transactions. In many ways how HTTP is an agreed-on way of sending and receiving data, smart contracts are an agreed-on way of processing transactions and entering binding agreements. The common infrastructure really makes a dev have significantly more capabilities.
Voting is very secure and trusted on the blockchain. Since you own your private key, no one can fake your vote, and your vote is stored on-chain forever. Your vote is then more than just a poll, but can actually trigger code to execute. Take a look at https://gitcoin.co/ as an example, where grants are set up for open source projects, and the community votes on who receives the grants.
Crowdfunding in general is spreading a lot. For example, startup pitches where the attendees vote on who wins the prize. Now you may ask why is this different from a regular competition? The votes actually guarantee and automatically trigger the funds deposit into the winner's account, instead of the organizers collecting the votes, and then manually going to some other payment processor to deposit them. This both increases trust and automation.
Also, existing crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter are seeing these advantages and moving to the blockchain https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/08/kickstarter-plans-to-move-its-crowdfunding-platform-to-the-blockchain/
The ease of writing code that handles transactions also means these solutions can be built much faster now. You could build your own crowdfunding or voting project within a day.
I'm happy to give more examples or dive deeper into any topic if you have questions.
Also, not everything needs to be on the blockchain. Right now the main benefits are trust, permanent storage, and guaranteed execution of contracts.
However, things like heavy data processing and use cases where trust is not a requirement probably don't make sense to be on-chain, as they would be more efficient off-chain.
Web3 is like "A web2 site uses/interact/connect with a big database which is known as Blockchain, and absolutely that 'database' is decentralized. I think Web3 is just overrated and hyped, better called it 'Web2.5'.
I would say Web3 is just leveraging blockchain/decentralization techniques on the web (on top of Web2).
Yeah, all the justifications for Web3 are actually pretty weak.
For one, "Smart Contracts" are probably the most overblown concept to come out of the crypto scene . Contracts in real life are rarely boolean. There are of course, some instances like the change of ownership of a domain name... . But in many cases, the fulfillment of a contract is fuzzy and that's where the fallback adjudication of smart contracts gets only slightly less fuzzy.
Likewise, ownership of tokens is not really as much of a "security" benefit as it may seem. Vendors must still respect / honor tokens. There's no greater security in blockchain ownership over the 'right' to a business service when the vendor must still perform the service -- especially when performance is qualitative and can be performed to varying degrees, speeds and standards.
Ultimately, there's an element of trust necessary when doing business with your merchants and business partners -- and that brings us right back to Web2.
Buyer beware, as always.
Web3 is a marketing term to make 'crypto' and 'blockchain' more accessible— trendy even. It's a proxy term for a network of decentralised applications eg without a singular governing authority, or at least one that is less centralised than its web2 precursors eg. think facebook and google.
The criticism about web3 is that it's turning out to be just as 'centralised' as web2— only with the ability to speculate on 'digital assets'. More so, it has the ability to be the foundation for alot of innovative use-cases that no one seems to want to make, because there is no speculative value in making them. Most of what's being made is for gambling, gaming, and derivative speculation. It seems like the only thing web3 solves for at the moment is hope.
There are still so, soOOOOoo many problems that good ole web2 and a database can solve. Like, the mainframe computer market is still growing.... so that tells you that there is still alot of old processes and services that are on 50 year old technology that need updating.
There's definitely a place for "web3", but I wouldn't get distracted by a new buzzword.
The question I would encourage anyone to ask is "why does this need a token?, what is the consumer demand, what problem does this solve, and what is the best infrastructure to deliver this solution?
It is sad to me that now people are saying stupid things to provoke votes and get attention. This community, IndieHackers, is made up of sincere people. My hope is that an honest effort to gain understanding is more the norm than the trolls that seem to be seeking a new home.
WEB3 is just a new hypeword to get money out of the pockets IMHO… while trying to solve non-existing problems or try the tried ideas and put under the blanket of WEB3 we saw that made with ICO before :) Would not bother myself too much… Also seen way too many business pivot from full on blockchain even when it makes sense to use one. For example track the origin of things in supply chain?
Someone posted this on IH
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/web3-my-attempt-to-explain-7dfe0fa0a6
I became 99% sure Web3 (and NFT) is a bullshit. There are a few enthusiastic people, usually developers, believing the vision of decentralized internet, but it doesn't make any sense from a business point of view, and not practical in real life, like communism in North Korea.
I never seen a single web3 solution that solves existing pain points.
If it helps, I've worked for a blockchain company from 2017-2019 and wrote a final year CS thesis about blockchain in 2016, and ran a profitable SaaS.
https://ibb.co/fFjdyMF
Web1 = Information
Web2 = Identity + Web1
Web3 = Ownership + Web2 + Web1
Many miss the point that Web3 is a result of efforts of Web1, Web2 & Crypto innovation
Web3 is not a clean slate and that’s what makes it more powerful
I'm even more confused after reading the comments tbh. Almost every newseltter I've subscribed to mentioned web3 at least once in the last mont.
ProductHunt regularly sends products about it but I can't find anything that explains it clearly.
It's either the benefits of web3 or how it's the next cosmic development in human history.
The problem with web3 is that the people promoting it would benefit from it to take of (their crypto investments would rise).
When web 2.0 arrived the main benefit that people were persuading was creating better sites and apps.
This article helped me understand a few things: https://seldo.com/posts/crypto-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly