Twitter explains Web3 to me

How does one develop a technology that no one can define?

Last week I asked Twitter to explain Web3 to me. Web3 is all about startup culture, and VCs and pitching and so on. So I feel like asking for someone to give me what is fundamentally an elevator pitch for the concept should be pretty straightforward! That’s the baseline requirement to have a product participate in the startup space and as someone who honestly enjoys the pitching process I’ve been responsible for many a summation myself. So the question:

Aram Zucker-Scharff @Chronotope

I'm curious. Can you define Web3 for me in a single tweet with no links? I'm looking for as many answers as possible.

Pretty straightforward.

Of course someone asked ‘Hey could you do this with web2?’ and yeah yeah I can. So let’s get that out of the way.

Aram Zucker-Scharff @Chronotope

@robleathern Absolutely! The social web: a change in web site & business design towards social technology. Emphasized easy-to-use centralized participatory user ecosystems, relationship graphs & user generated content. Usually free & funded by ads targeted on data user engagement generates.

The result of my request? Over 80 Web3 definitions. Not a lot of them were totally compatible. Those of which were legible and even slightly serious I’ve collected here, separated by major category, semi-sorted by time:

Web3 is token-based interactions

cdixon.eth @cdixon

Web 3 is the internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens.

Rob Leathern @robleathern

@Chronotope @dmarti @edzitron I might call it “just in time coordination” or systems to decentralize/manage incentives. Others point to decaying trust in institutions leading to an “internet owned by the builders and users, orchestrated with tokens” (@cdixon) but you seem to have your own priors already :)

Ben Savage @btsavage

@Chronotope It’s this dream that the next generation of web services and communities could be built on blockchain based primitives that place less trust in centralized entities, and confer more decision making power to participants. Problems abound, lots of scams. Unclear blockchain required

Web3 is micropayments

Gideon @gid3xn

@Chronotope Web3 is a software upgrade of the internet, incorporating a new layer of software called distributed ledger technologies which enable peer to peer transfer of value the way previous upgrades (web2) enabled p2p transfer of information.

Don Marti @dmarti

@Chronotope @robleathern @edzitron Today, most people who use Git, a "distributed version control" system, are interacting with MSFT servers. Whatever web3 projects succeed will work out the same way, swapping out the feature-limited, hard-to-support, resource-hogging blockchain for something practical

Aaron Schraeter @AaronSchraeter

@Chronotope Simplest I’ve heard was “wallet based internet”. Unfortunately im still not sure what that means…

Stephen Townshend @the_kiwi_sre

@Chronotope Everything is a microtransaction, everyone is trying to scam each other, obscured pyramid schemes as far as the eye can see.

Web3 is creating ownable/tradeable property out of digital media and data (financialization)

Tom Scheinfeldt @foundhistory

@Chronotope A movement to turn digital copyrights into real property

Misha @mishavinokur

@Chronotope A decentralized web where scarcity can be applied to digital assets creating a new experience for economic/social/and physical participation and wealth. (I don’t think its all about blockchain but decentralization of services is key)

Damon Kiesow @dkiesow

@Chronotope Branding for the over-financialization of the web.

Yoz Grahame @yoz

@Chronotope Web3 is the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship "is hoping to profit from the money and effort invested in shared strings of mostly meaningless numbers by".

Jeff Turner @jeffreymt1

@Chronotope Web1 = read Web2 = write Web3 = own

Daniel Coεmeta McNichol @dnlmc

@Chronotope taxonomy that makes sense to me but obv fuzzy boundaries (not original but can't find a tweet): 1: mostly broadcast, weakly networked 2: strongly networked, central platform ownership, user-generated content 3: user-generated, distributed ownership (largely aspirational)

Ben @bdbreedlove

@Chronotope Capital is so desperate for new markets to exploit that goods or services are no longer necessary.

👁👅👁 @AlisonBuki

@Chronotope Financialize your life and personal relationships

bVork @bVorkitup

@Chronotope Rent-seeking middlemen try to turn every human interaction into a transaction and insert themselves in the middle to take a cut.

Summer Anne Burton @summeranne

@Chronotope @donohoe a group of people who want to remake the internet to be based on anonymous financial transactions for their personal enrichment

Reeson 🗨️ Stands 💭 in 💬 Solidarity, for Freedom @InternetofWords

@Chronotope The Internet is the Product.

Doug @newdougman

@Chronotope An attempt to turn every piece of content on the web into an asset to be traded.

Travis Owen @alqabadai

@Chronotope The monetization of all things

Void Screamers United Local 001™ @GrayBlue

@Chronotope 'we made stocks harder to understand and less regulated, and everything is based on it now'

Jeremiah @seizemeans

@Chronotope Enclosure for the open web.

Will Thomas, MLS @caribouwireless

@Chronotope "Imposing artificial scarcity on unbounded capacity without dying of laughter"

Web3 is about “Decentralization”

I’m putting decentralization in quotes here because I think that people do not share a clear definition on that either.

Karl Bode @KarlBode

@Chronotope natural decentralized evolution of existing internet-based technologies overhyped by speculative edgelords, grifters, and venture capitalists

Ben Keith @benlkeith

@Chronotope web3, noun: a hypothesized era of the Internet where: 1. blockchain replaces traditional centralized hosting and databases, or 2. decentralized storage (e.g., IPFS) replaces traditional centralized hosting, or 3. users pivot from closed to open platforms (Mastodon, Matrix)

Ernie Smith @ShortFormErnie

@Chronotope What people who had never used a computer before thought the internet was in 1995

MIKΞ⊕ΞLGAN @MikeElgan

@Chronotope @michellemanafy Web3 is a possible future internet where all data and content is registered on blockchains, tokenized, or managed and accessed on peer-to-peer distributed networks in order to democratize the internet and take away control from governments and corporations.

Caelan Huntress @caelanhuntress

@Chronotope Web3 is an internet model built on a web of network connections instead of a series of connected hub-and-spoke models

byJoshuaDavis @byJoshuaDavis

@Chronotope Apps that integrate connections to 21st century decentralized (i.e. censorship resistant) protocols for payment, data storage/processing and other functions. It’s a (probably naïve) attempt to realize the hopes and dreams of the original web.

Jackie Singh 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @hackingbutlegal

@Chronotope An architectural shift away from centralized systems & opaque databases managed by trusted entities with no equity for participants towards decentralized systems & transparent databases mediated by trusted code with equity and voting rights for participants.

Art Yerkes @prozacchiwawa

@Chronotope @jhamby marriage of trustless cryptographic technology (usually blockchain) with web presentation to enable a synthesis of platform oriented web experiences with disintermediation for identity, payments and API access. 1/

Kemp @kempedmonds

@Chronotope Technology to decentralize and validate with code rather than humans.

Joe Psy-opaganda @Eateator

@Chronotope Web3 is a next step in the relationship between humanity and the internet. Services and platforms, users and citizens, money and currency, privacy and digital freedoms, all under development and investigation as threats and potentials to save or destroy everyone. Place your bets.

Web3 is specifically about Blockchain decentralization

Ben Welsh @palewire

@Chronotope Like seti@home or torrents but with blockchain and for everything.

Neal Parikh @npparikh

@Chronotope Wikipedia: “an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology, which incorporates concepts including decentralization and token-based economics”

John Chandler 🔶️🔰 @john_chandler

@Chronotope Another attempt to shoehorn "teh blockchainz" into something that generally doesn't need it? Other than that, I'm at a loss. Seems to be whatever cryptobros want it to mean.

Brent @burnto

@Chronotope it's the same web, but with connections to blockchain nodes and additional browser plugins or mobile apps that let you manage your private keys and create transactions.

Kevin @Anusien

@Chronotope If we could magically convince everyone to use this database to store and read a specific type of information, that sure would be cool. Also the database is really inefficient because it’s on the blockchain.

Scott Nover @ScottNover

@Chronotope A version of the internet that overly relies on blockchains.

Web3 is about burning up the planet for various reasons

Adam Schweigert @aschweig

@Chronotope like bean babies, but you have to destroy the planet to make them

TimS @TimSEsq

@Chronotope Computers furiously shouting random numbers at each other across the Internet, using enough electricity to power a major country, all to support folks ideologically terrified that central banks love hyperinflation.

David Eads @eads

@Chronotope The latest attempt in the history of the internet to create a technical solution to fundamentally political problems. Only this time it involves burning even more carbon.

Emma needs ☕️ @triagegirl

@Chronotope Instead of intrusive ads and tracking, you burn a lot of fossil fuels to pay a middleman to view a so-called distributed resource.

Nathalie Maréchal, PhD @MarechalPhD

@Chronotope The brainchild of cyberlibertarianism and technosolutionism, but highly resource-intensive.

Web3 is about Cryptocurrency

Kevin Beaumont @GossiTheDog

@Chronotope Crypto people still having a group wank.

dave karpf @davekarpf

@Chronotope Web3 is a branding exercise, just like Web 2.0. Web 2 was a reaction to the dotcom crash. Web 3 is a reaction to the techlash. But web2 built atop several genuinely significant new activities (wikis, blogs, social sharing, etc). Web 3 is built atop crypto speculation.

Web3 is about Decentralized ID / Login

Elegant Entropy @ElegantEntropy

@Chronotope

Jason Novack @jasonnov

@Chronotope web3 describes apps that encourage users to bring outside data with them to improve their experience, and that also encourage users to generate, earn, or acquire data from within the app that will improve their experiences with 3rd party apps

McEwen @melissamcewen

@Chronotope “Connect your wallet”

Trillian Astra @ReneeStLouis

@Chronotope Libertarian Tech Bros attempting to insert themselves as middleman in every possible commercial and communications interaction online

Seth Ulinski @Seth_Ulinski

@ReneeStLouis @Chronotope Funny b/c it is half true; FWW blockchain addresses some major industry pain points: Consent and Trust: opt-in, can't be evil Value exchange: crypto rewards Giving consumers more agency/ownership over their data via #dataunions is a better option IMO $FB $GOOG #adtech #web3

Paul Richardson @TechboyUK

@Chronotope it's an umbrella term referring to how people are able to take more control of their personal information, currency, etc. through trustless security, decentralised technologies, etc.

kindalikeben @kindalikeben

@Chronotope Private keys to public records.

Ted Han ★ 韓聖安 @knowtheory

@samuelgoto @Chronotope So, web3 -is- inherently tied to identity. Like, in order to interact/transact you have to link a wallet. Much of the UX/adoption issues that folks have worked on in the past two years are specifically about trying make that process usable for normal humans.

Web3 is a straight up scam

Aggie Panda ♿ ACAB 😷 fuck walensky @aggie_panda

@Chronotope @b_cavello Multi level marketing

Simon Willison @simonw

@Chronotope A cynical rebrand to keep the number going up

Brett Cannon @brettsky

@simonw @Chronotope Cloud file hosting with the world's most expensive ingress combined with ridiculous upload limits

Benjamin Spiegel @neapsix

@Chronotope A term that a certain sector of the financial industry uses to market products that they sell. This term can make those products seem legitimate and highly advanced by inviting comparison with familiar terms like “web” and “Web 2.0.”

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk @cypnk

@Chronotope @b_cavello Money laundering, now in HTTP

Assi9 @assi9

@Chronotope @jhamby Web2 - Cash Graboogaloo the Sequel

TheBeehammer @TheBeehammer

@Chronotope Marketing

Rand Fitzpatrick @sixwing

@reconbot @Chronotope liberal application of snake oil to merkle trees

Ryan Mitchell @Kludgist

@Chronotope It’s about ethics in gaming journalism.

Sam @saminterlinked

@Chronotope

Pete Birkinshaw @binaryape

@Chronotope Desperate scam

-J- @CascadingDesign

@Chronotope Poorly defined buzzword for scam technology filled with empty promises and zero substance. An absolute waste of energy, time and money.

Ron Wright 🇺🇦 @rkwright

@Chronotope Scam.

Robbie Coleman 🌻 @erraggy

@Chronotope One word covers it all: Bullshit

MT⬡572A @MT6572A

@Chronotope okay so imagine a scam

Savinien de Rivet @Sderivet

@Chronotope bullshit marketing

OpenSea NFT Wallet Inspector @mplewis

@Chronotope Of course, friend. Simply connect your wallet so I can verify your finances are in order.

Bartek Ogryczak @var_tec

@Chronotope Yet another scam.

Me @brocmeala

@Chronotope A nicely packaged pile of crap

Dan Tynan @tynanwrites

@Chronotope 99% hype, 1% gas fees.

The Taxonomy of Web3 Definitions

Hopefully I haven’t offended anyone by their placement in this loose taxonomy of Web3 definitions! My intent was to try and reduce it down as much as possible to a minimum of useful categories.

Now this is hardly a scientific polling process, but seeing how this is a newsletter I’m going to draw assumptions from it anyway.

It’s interesting to me that the most commonality (outside of calling it a scam) was in identifying Web3 as a project of financialization. A number of supporters and detractors defined Web3 this way and likely would identify Web3’s process of financilizing the internet as the very reason they support or dislike Web3 as a concept.

I was also really interested in a number of people identifying Web3 as a way to log or opt-in, which was something I very much did not expect and would never have suggested as a definition. I know you *can* log in with Web3 tools, but considering the pseudo anonymous nature of cryptocurrency/blockchain I don’t really consider “logging in” to be useful to Web3 projects except as a means to other ends.

The same for microtransactions, Web3 enables microtransactions to happen more easily, but it doesn’t make sense for me as a goal, there are numerous products out there to manage transactions and microtransactions at scale without forcing users to jump through the significantly difficult hoops that creating and filling and connecting a crypto wallet requires.

The case against tokens

I think the most organized and clear support and definition for Web3 was argued with this idea of defining it as “doing stuff with tokens”. It’s an interesting definition that divorces web3 from the requirements of using Blockchain (a notable category of answers) or crypto currency.

This is what I would *like* to have Web3 mean personally. As an engineer who is interested in technology, that’s the space that seems to have a lot of interesting potential use cases that are—as yet—unsatisfied. Tokens for login, tokens to participate in specific types of groups or projects, tokens to represent specific information or membership, etc… I think this is the sort of thing that might have real uses. I’m not the only one and it is very clear that the cryptocurrency community saw that and glommed on to that set of use cases to advertise themselves and establish the idea of Web3.

But I don’t think that the idea that Web3 represents some new token-based web is reality-based. At this point I’ve built my own tiny blockchain, read a bunch of white papers and technical docs from cryptocurrency projects, and read a ton from all perspectives on this. (I will be publishing a collection of readings soon.) More notably than that, I spent a good week of my free time really really trying to set up a way to use the existing ecosystem of crypto wallets to manage arbitrary tokens unattached to any existing cryptocurrency and—as far as I can tell—that is impossible and no one appears to be actively working on it.

The idea that anything token-based in the “Web3” space does or could operate independently from cryptocurrency seems to be, at best, fantasy; at worst, purposeful misdirection. There certainly does not appear to be relevant technology available yet to support those use cases. More importantly: there seems to be almost no one who would define themselves as a Web3 proponent interested in that use case, though it would almost certainly expand adoption of related technologies, increase user base, and open up all new types of projects that could expand the definition of Web3. No, it seems the only thing about tokens that interests Web3 developers is their ability to act as securities for cryptocurrency, or as a thing to spend cryptocurrency on in some way or another.

So, Web3 is?

So I have to go back to how I would define Web3. The conversation that started this specific post:

Aram Zucker-Scharff @Chronotope

@robleathern @edzitron If you had to buy & sell books to host a website then yes you could say that the internet was made to sell books, but it wasn't the way it worked then. You *do* have to buy & sell crypto to participate in almost every "web3" product... so web3 is a mechanism for churning crypto.

and I’ve seen no particular definition adequate enough to convince me otherwise. At the end of the day all these other definitions are, to quote one responder, marketing. All of these projects, when they actually manifest in the Web3 space, always connect back to a cryptocurrency blockchain. In fact they are designed specifically on the concepts of trade and value that require backing by financial transactions. It’s an interesting dream that Web3 could be separate from cryptocurrency, but in reality there is no Web3 stuff I can see that isn’t either cryptocurrency, or churning cryptocurrency by design. That’s reality as I see it!

Maybe one day this will change. As others have said, this feels like a solution in search of a problem. Maybe it will find that problem! But I await that reality rather than assuming it will one day arrive.

To come: a really long page with every interesting thing I’ve read about cryptocurrency. But it won’t be an email. I’ll link it.