Web3 Will Not Be Built on Smart Contracts • DeSo (Decentralized Social) Blockchain

Some believe that decentralization requires the entire social network to be on a blockchain. This is unnecessary and even undesirable. Social networks generate petabytes of data every year, which can be very expensive to store on-chain. Blockchains also make it difficult to delete data forever, which is a desirable feature for users. A network desi... See more

If you're a developer building decentralized applications, you have been faced with uncomfortable tradeoffs in choosing how to manage data. The two available options available have held back Web3 apps:Option 1 has been to use a smart contract (blockchain-based) backend and a static frontend. The downside of this option is that these apps are not ve... 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

There isn’t much that blockchains enable that would be impossible to implement in a web2 way. It wouldn’t be trustless and decentralized—but the benefits of decentralization are way too abstract and vague to compel most people.

While the blockchain offers promise in addressing some of the challenges present in Web 2.0, the blockchain alone does not comprise the entirety of the web3 experience. In fact, the complexity of working on the blockchain means that the barrier for entering this space is somewhat higher, and as a result there are few companies building the required... See more

What primarily differentiates DeSci from other efforts to rethink our research system is its use of blockchain tools. This is similar to how blockchain is disrupting other industries, where web2 models of centralized ownership are being challenged by web3 models of decentralized, shared ownership.

But decentralizing the internet has been hard to do. When contrasted against the well-established efficiency and stability of centralized systems, decentralized systems have struggled to keep pace. Now, however, the emerging technology of crypto and web3 — specifically, programmable blockchains, composable smart contracts, and digital assets — make... See more