What Are We Going to Do With the Internet?
There’s a more human approach to the future web than Web3
Online these days — that is to say, on social media — there’s an aggressive line of apocalyptic/utopian thinking about the demise of the platform internet, or Web 2.0, and the rise of a new, more perfect web. The prophesy espoused, mostly by bros, is that the next form of the internet, Web3, will create a more open and free internet. The key to it all is the power of blockchain, the “shared, immutable ledger” that tracks transactions or asset exchanges transparently and immediately.
On Web3, people will use cryptocurrency to build, or invest in, new websites — perhaps a new social platform owned in part by every one of its users rather than a tech company. In fact, Web3 has the potential to free us from the tech mega-companies and their algorithms, not to mention their handling and selling of our data — or so its boosters claim. Instead of relying on the Facebooks, Twitters, Tik Toks and Googles of the world to handle our data, we’ll instead put our faith in the original text — we’ll trust in the blockchain. It will offer us “a single view of the truth.”
A lot of people are skeptical about crypto, generally, and Web3 specifically. With good reason. The cryptocurrency market fluctuates wildly, is subject to innumerable scams…
