Why Build in Web3

Sharing ownership allows for more incentive alignment between products and their derivatives, creating incentives for everyone to become a builder and contributor. 

Today’s dominant internet platforms are built on aggregating users and user data. As these platforms have grown, so has their ability to provide value — thanks to the power of network effects — which has enabled them to stay ahead.

Building on an interoperable infrastructure layer makes it easy for platforms to plug into broader content networks, thereby expanding the scale and types of value they can provide their users. A Web3 art gallery, for example, can bootstrap off the artwork users have already created on the blockchain, rather than requiring them to upload art to the... See more

Indeed, taken to the limit, in Web3, users sometimes have no need to trust the company (or people) behind a project; rather, they just have to trust the code itself.

Despite all the public conversations around the metaverse and various hyper-financialized NFT projects, Web3, more than anything, is a fundamentally different approach that some developers have agreed to. It’s based on the premise that there’s an alternative to exploiting users for data to make money — and that instead, building open platforms that... See more

Making platform backends open and interoperable enables compounding innovation and incentivizes direct investment in building the infrastructure layers.

Web3 platforms also have the potential to unlock a novel and especially powerful form of network effect through community engagement and social cohesion. 

Managing digital assets on public ledgers makes it clearer which assets exist and who owns what, which was previously a struggle on the web. 

These digital assets are typically created according to interoperable standards on public blockchains, instead of being privately hosted on a company’s servers. This makes the assets “portable,” in the sense that a user can, in principle, leave any given platform whenever they want by unplugging from that app and moving — along with their data — to... See more

In Web3, instead of platforms having full control of the underlying data, users typically own whatever content they have created (such as posts or videos), as well as digital objects they have purchased.