Can anybody tell me why so many people think that Web 3 = NFTs + crypto currencies? NFTs and crypto currencies are a part of what people think the Web 3.0 will be, but they are definitely not synonyms. The author, however, seem to have did that.
It's been what, 15 years? I'm still using € and $.
Why is HN so different than my experience? Have you met a lot of criminals who own BTC?
There are a lot of people who think they can swim with the sharks. Good luck with that.
Regardless of the original or intended definitions of "Web3", it will end up being whatever the masses think it is. To recap some history:
- "web3" circa ~2014 when coined by Gavin Wood covered 3 concepts without mentioning NFTs : (1) hash-ids of static content instead of urls (2) p2p encrypted messaging (3) consensus engine. (One of the earlier essays from 2014: https://gavwood.com/web3lt.html)
- "web3" circa ~2021 emphasizing the "token economy" (e.g. NFTs) popularized by Chris Dixon (a16z VC): this is the current news mania with celebrities selling jpgs, etc
Therefore "web3==NFTs" narrative has overtaken the original Gavin Wood narrative.
Analogous situation of evolution of terms was the "internet". In the 1980s, "internet" included Gopher, telnet, USENET, ftp. (E.g. I used to be able to telnet into public computers before all firewalls and Linux configs shut off telnet access.) But Gopher/USENET/etc faded and HTTP became the dominant idea of what "internet" is.
NFTs now have constant press coverage of eye-popping sale amounts from celebrities and OpenSea founders are now paper billionaires. Therefore, NFTs dominate the meaning of "web3" because getting rich is more sexy to talk about than encrypted-p2p-communications-based-on-hash-identities.
The crypto community is the biggest part of the push for it, so it's natural that people would make that connection.
However, I consider any web tech that has user ownership or decentralization as a principle to be Web3. Some non-crypto examples would be Mastadon, Matrix, GunDB, and IPFS (although IPFS does have crypto-backed pinning services, such as Filecoin and Arweave, IPFS itself is agnostic to crypto).
TBH i think it is a good thing. Web3 and the finance bros that popularize it should die with it, and we should keep working with the truly decentralized fundamentals, not with intermediaries.
As for the legality of it, maybe we can think of it as being a scam as much as companies selling tamagotchis [1] in the 90's are or were a scam. It was somewhat in fashion to own one back then. At one point it was quite profitable to manufacture and sell them. However, now and possibly forever the volumes at the peak of the fad would never be restored. At least right now, in 2022, perhaps the current trend of owning an NFT collection and presenting it to others is somewhat driven by vanity in a similar way. Perhaps it's the future with NFTs.
Can't say I agree with the present situation, and I'm kinda hoping people will find better things to do with their hard-owned money.
[1] - A Brief History of Tamagotchi | Innovation | Smithsonian Magazine - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/keeping-tamagotchi...
At the moment NFTs + crypto cover up to 95% of web3’s marketing visible functionalities.
Additionally no killer “app” has been shown to the public where it demonstrate an intangible value over previous technology, at least that the public understands it.
Does that mean web3 isn't "just blockchains and NFTs" but also DAOs? That doesn't seem all that different from the initial assumption of it broadly being about cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
"85 terabytes per year is totally fine" -vitalik https://twitter.com/zndtoshi/status/1478387674335559681