The right to never be forgotten

Crypto will be a total clusterfuck for privacy, as the foundational tenets of the blockchain—distributed data across many machines with no central control, inalterable data, public data around pseudonymous (or anonymous) identity, permissionless reading and writing—are utterly antithetical to all contemporary privacy thinking. It’s hard to think of... See more

While Web3 has the potential to reimagine how we use the internet, it also raises thorny issues around privacy, user experience, and how much control users truly want. 

Are we destined for an even less private web? Who is affected by web3's lack of privacy is not addressed? Crypto users often maintain split identities because they do not wish to be exposed to the public eye. Still, they must be willing to try to maintain privacy, identity management, and pseudonymity.

In web3, the promise is that a user can retain ownership and control over their data. The dominant narrative goes: “The gatekeepers of web2 have taken your data and used it against you! Now it’s time to fight back!” Such argument from web3 enthusiasts is met with A LOT of resistance as data effectively becomes a currency that can be leveraged by a ... See more

This interpretation stands in contrast to the claims that web3 advocates make. They claim that web2 is a centralized mess dominated by technology megacorporations and web3 is now about content ownership. In order to achieve these goals, they must create an entirely new operating model for the web, one built on the blockchain. Blockchain is in effec... See more

This is, admittedly, a very powerful idea. The challenges of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 around ownership, censorship, and digital rights are highly nontrivial ones. For web3 enthusiasts, these issues are existential threats to the web, threats that web3 will eradicate simply by eliminating the question. There can be no debate on the power or responsibilit... See more

Some claim web3 is about ownership, but it is more appropriate to say that web3 is about wealth. Very little in the web3 advocacy space addresses how it will match Web 1.0 and 2.0’s successes in terms of discoverability and sharing. It offers little by way of guarantee that it will protect its users' digital rights, in some cases making them much w... See more