<story><title>Web3 is a stupid idea</title><url>https://timdaub.github.io/2020/09/08/web3/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>patwolf</author><text>I was around for web 2.0, and it felt like a substantial change over how the web worked previously. It was the first glimpse that the web was capable of replacing the desktop apps we were accustomed to, while simultaneously adding new capabilities that didn&amp;#x27;t exist in desktop apps. There was a lot more to it, but to the casual user that was the most obvious difference.&lt;p&gt;This was the first thing I&amp;#x27;ve read about web 3, so I didn&amp;#x27;t need to grep my brain to find and remove any existing notions about it. As someone coming in late to the party, I agree that installing a browser extension seems like a deal breaker. Web 2.0 was about getting rid of browser extensions. It also sounds like web3 is missing a killer app. For web 2.0, Gmail and Google Maps and YouTube were all immediately useful to all web users. Web 3 doesn&amp;#x27;t sound all that compelling to a lay person.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jlokier</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s because &amp;quot;Web 3&amp;quot; is more of a marketing term, whereas &amp;quot;Web 2.0&amp;quot; was a descriptive term coined for something that had already emerged in the preceding years from countless independent implementations, evolving together.&lt;p&gt;When &amp;quot;Web 2.0&amp;quot; was named, most of the techniques had been used for over a decade, and social networking side of it was well established too.  Even &amp;quot;AJAX&amp;quot; was coined years after some sites were already using that technique, without that name.&lt;p&gt;Web 3 is an attempt to portray p2p, cryptocurrency, IPFS and similar types of networks as on an equal footing to the evolutionary changes that vaguely made up Web 2.0.&lt;p&gt;In particular, the name implies it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;the&amp;quot; (singular) next version of the Web after 2.0.&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s too early to be sure of that.  Most people aren&amp;#x27;t using it, most sites aren&amp;#x27;t using it either and don&amp;#x27;t plan to.  The real successor to Web 2.0 that things evolve to en masse might be quite different than Web 3 proponents are describing at the moment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Web3 is a stupid idea</title><url>https://timdaub.github.io/2020/09/08/web3/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>patwolf</author><text>I was around for web 2.0, and it felt like a substantial change over how the web worked previously. It was the first glimpse that the web was capable of replacing the desktop apps we were accustomed to, while simultaneously adding new capabilities that didn&amp;#x27;t exist in desktop apps. There was a lot more to it, but to the casual user that was the most obvious difference.&lt;p&gt;This was the first thing I&amp;#x27;ve read about web 3, so I didn&amp;#x27;t need to grep my brain to find and remove any existing notions about it. As someone coming in late to the party, I agree that installing a browser extension seems like a deal breaker. Web 2.0 was about getting rid of browser extensions. It also sounds like web3 is missing a killer app. For web 2.0, Gmail and Google Maps and YouTube were all immediately useful to all web users. Web 3 doesn&amp;#x27;t sound all that compelling to a lay person.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>casi18</author><text>metamask has 10MM monthly active users, opensea at half the volume of ebay last month...&lt;p&gt;anecdotally, people seem to be moving to wallet connect smartphone wallets (eg rainbow) recently as they are nicer than browser extensions + you can use mobile websites&amp;#x2F;apps with them. Metamask is a bit of a mess tbh.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been in the space for a few years now so i find it really hard imagining a non-cryptocurrency&amp;#x2F;web3 internet at this point. It&amp;#x27;s such a big part of my use of the internet at this point. Hanging out in various dao chats in discord from chess clubs to running gallery spaces, voting in snapshot is a daily activity. Its basically like being in wow guilds, but with a completely open-ended design space to play in.&lt;p&gt;Im not sure what people will be satisfied with as a killer app? what is the measure of success? it feels like its already here and successful to me. After a dull period of the internet feeling like it was disappearing under FAANG it feels alive and chaotic and fun again.</text></comment>