Thoughts On Web 3

What's up Fellow Savages,

Recently I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter and was very impressed when they integrated with the lightning network so you can tip people with Bitcoin or USD straight from your Twitter. A lot can happen in the coming years, but one of the reasons I love Twitter is its commitment to creating a decentralized platform where the consumer's data is controlled by the consumer and not a company. Their project BlueSky still has a lot of work to be done, but from what I can tell the end goal is to create a decentralized social media platform where the user has full control of their data. This is what Web 3 is all about and for context, we are using Web 2 services where corporations like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others control all of our data. Think about it like this. You walk in the grocery store and the manager is watching everything you do. How long you stare at certain products, what you put in your cart, and what you end up purchasing. This is in essence what all these companies do when you use their platforms and they use this data to target you with other ads. The more data you feed it the better it gets at recommending. Now think what could happen if you had full control of all that data and only released to companies what you want shared.

That is not to say decentralization doesn't come with issues. For example, if you purchase Bitcoin and have it on your own personal wallet not a centralized exchange like Coinbase or Binance and you lose your private keys there is no way to recover those coins. If you had them on a centralized exchange you would be able to recover them. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and I hope that more tech giants will follow the likes of Twitter and work on decentralized platforms. The sad truth is the decentralization of these platforms doesn't bode well for profit since most of these companies rely primarily on ad revenue, but it does bode well for the end-user. What will end up happening.... no clue, but I will detail what I hope to see happen in the coming years.

I'd love to see platforms where people can opt between decentralized and centralized sites based on a users comfort level. Back to the Bitcoin example, if you are a computer wiz you probably feel comfortable taking your Bitcoin off exchanges and backing up your private keys in multiple places so you don't lose your coin, but if you are just getting started keeping your coins on an exchange is probably the best route. I don't see why we can't give users the choice for the sites they choose to spend time on when they scroll the internet. If you aren't interested in controlling your data and you just want to keep using social media as is then you should be able to do so. If you want full control of what gets shared about you and like playing around in the back end so you can fine-tune what get's recommended then you should be able to do that as well. All publically listed companies have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit to their shareholders. However, I have a strong conviction that the companies who prioritize the end-user will fair much better in the long run than the ones who obsess over profit even if it means causing harm to others.

Would love to hear other's thoughts on Web 3, what they are looking forward to in the coming years, and what scares them.

Happy Monday may the phones be good to you and the email responses plentiful.

Cheers,

Chep