A non-exhaustive list in no specific order:
- Users should be in control of the data they produce and consume. No single centralized entity should have this right over its users, and regulations like the GDPR and cookie consent forms shouldn't exist.
- Advertisements and adtech is hostile to the user experience. The web should have alternative monetization options that are easy to integrate for web developers, and establish a direct market between content consumers and content producers, with no middlemen.
- Web services should be versioned and users should have the choice of which version they want to use. Companies shouldn't be given the freedom to e.g. change feed algorithms on a whim based on some obscure A/B test. Users shouldn't be forced to use the latest version of applications, and it should be easy for web developers to support several active versions in production.
Opera made a step in the right direction by bundling a web server many years ago with Opera Unite, but that went nowhere and was quickly abandoned.
BitTorrent, WebTorrent and WebRTC sort of feel like building blocks towards empowering the user, but despite of the prevalence and stability of the technologies, no big user friendly app is built on top of them.
Brave Inc.'s Basic Attention Token is probably the best effort towards fixing the monetization aspect, but is tied to one specific browser, one specific currency, and built by a company that's done several missteps and has lost the trust of many users along the way.
Then, of course, is the blockchain, the distributed utopia, and hype around "crypto" everyone seems to be discussing. There are good ideas here as well, muddled by many issues specific to these technologies that should be addressed.
IMO, web3 should be some combination of all of these and new technologies that empower the user, and make the web friendlier for the current user base and welcoming to the other 40% of the world which is still not online.
Otherwise corporations will continue to rule the web while people who can improve it are stuck in perpetual analysis paralysis.