The other argument for Web3, one that I think is a bit generous, but worth considering, is that Web3 solves a central problem with the way we’ve made money online for the last three decades: scale. In an internet determined by advertisers, everything must reach a level of scale that is both impossible to maintain, and possibly unhealthy for... See more

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

Micropayments could potentially resolve this friction in a decentralized way, which I would love to see. On the other hand, this is a really hard problem: people have been working on it since at least Digital's Millicent over 25 years ago. There have been many proposals and startups, but nothing has really worked out.

Web 3 is the reverse of web 2 in severals ways, and that ‘flippening’ can be disorienting . Take the usual ordering of consumer usefulness followed by monetization, as one clear example.

First, do we want to live in a world where people pay for content? I’m not sure. For one, it presumes the most valuable things should be closed, when the beauty of the web is that that zero marginal cost of production means the most valuable things should reach whomever they are relevant to.