Web3 and me

Lately, I’ve been leaning back into the world. Things like web3, blockchain technology, NFTs and The Metaverse have been on my periphery—I’ve known they are becoming a ‘thing.’ Still, I haven’t invested any energy into thinking about them or forming any opinions. Quite honestly, there’s been resistance to many new things these days as the world is feeling overwhelming enough already without piling more stuff on top of it. It’s a lot, isn’t it?

And so, all this talk of web3 has just felt too abstract and too hard to wrap my head around. But as I consider what work/employment looks like for me after my sabbatical, I find myself opening up and exploring more. The resistance is slowly melting away. I’ve been reading, listening and having conversations, and my neurons are firing. I haven’t felt this way in a while—energized to learn more and engage with a big unknown. I’m at the outset of wrapping my head around this space. Here’s what’s on my mind.

First off, what the heck is it? The simplest way I’ve heard it described is: if web1 were read-only, web2 is read-write, web3 is read-write-own. What does that even mean? We are mostly in a web2 world atm, where people use the internet to consume content, publish content, share and engage through social networks. It’s been a pretty great web2 world for the most part: connecting people, unlocking commerce and enabling us to keep chugging along throughout a global pandemic—unprecedented! I find it hard to believe there was a time we didn’t have the internet let alone computers at work (what did people even do at their desks?!). But all this greatness comes at a cost: your personal data. For a while, the average ‘user’ (aka. human) wasn’t aware of this exchange; it slowly and creepily crept into our awareness. Ads that knew you better than you knew yourself as if someone was stalking your every move…which is precisely what these internet companies have been doing. And now they’ve become so embedded in our lives that it’s become hard to escape them—they are the ones pulling all the strings. My husband recently closed all his social media accounts, only to create a new Facebook account again to access its Marketplace. He felt he had no choice if he wanted to sell a used mountain bike. We are beginning to ask ourselves: is this what we want? For a few giant internet companies to be pulling all the strings and profiting from our data? 

Thus web3 has emerged—a decentralized internet that runs on a public blockchain—allowing people to participate while maintaining ownership over their data and how it is used. This still feels somewhat abstract to me, and it probably will until it starts to become more mainstream and we see what it can unlock. Sort of like the internet circa 1995. It was hard to imagine what it could do for us back then. My father, whom I regarded as the smartest person in the world, said, “the internet’s not going anywhere”. Ha! I wish he were still alive to give me his take on the blockchain. Around the same time, I also remember dialling in (dialling up?) and chatting online for the first time at my friend’s house at age 14 or 15. It blew our minds that we could have a 1:1 conversation with a stranger over a computer. Some of the strangers were real perverts, asking us our age and wanting to share inappropriate penis information with us, at which point we’d promptly hang up and scream. It felt icky. 

One of my initial fears surrounding web3 is that pervs will prosper in dark corners with increased privacy. The internet has already provided fringe movements with a platform and voice, allowing them to gain momentum and power. And that’s with centralized systems. Facebook and Twitter can at least kick someone like Donald Trump off. Twitch quickly found and shut down the feed from the recent racist mass shooting in Buffalo. How will this be mitigated with web3? Likely, there will always be dark activity online and offline, but how can it be kept to the fringes and not make it into the mainstream? In the early stages of web3, will the opportunistic pervs prosper as they did in 1995?

Next, let’s talk about the metaverse—the metaverse that is not Facebook’s—the decentralized metaverse. Lately, I’ve been unplugging and feeling the need to disconnect more and more. My knee-jerk reaction is,”heck no! I want off the internet. I want to spend more time in the mountains and with my children. I want more real, not reality”. I reject the idea that a virtual life could become more important than my real life. But as I dig in, I think there’s more here for me to unpack.

As I recover from burnout, I’ve been doing some real soul-searching, peeling back the layers and building myself back up, asking the ultimate question: who am I? It’s a self-inquiry that requires only contemplation. It brings awareness (who is the awareness?). Does this change if I can turn into an avatar and exist in a virtual world? Can the metaverse get me closer to this question? Can technology help bring awareness to our own consciousness? 🤯

I was listening to a Podcast the other day that triggered this line of thought for me. I found the conversation incredibly fascinating. Here’s a quote from Jaron Lanier from the show.

“Who is it who is suspended in nothing, experiencing these events? It is you, but not exactly. What is left of you when you can change virtually everything about your body and the world?” 

And finally, NFTs. Proof of digital ownership. Is it all just a bunch of smoke and mirrors? Now, markets are on a bit of a downturn, crypto is taking a hit, and people aren’t buying as many NFTs as a few months ago. Is there an actual value that will last, or is it all just speculative? I am starting to think yes-maybe. Value for whom? Not just the early investors, hoping to capitalize, but for the artists and creators out there, for creativity more broadly. We’re seeing wacky avatars (bored ape yacht club) and communities forming around them, but that’s just the beginning. What if you bought a ticket to a concert, and your ticket was an NFT, and then you got a token/avatar to show you’re a superfan and were there? Applied more broadly to ownership, what if you got an NFT when purchasing a car? A house? What if an NFT was your online identity, replacing the need for email and accounts across the internet? 

My brain hurts a little in writing this post. I’m grateful, however, that I’ve unblocked my thinking and have gotten the squeaky wheels turning again. I’ll probably look back on this post in ten years on and chuckle. I feel like Bryant Gumbel trying to wrap his head around the internet in 1994. 

It’s not going to solve the world’s problems, it very well might create more (like the intensive environmental footprint running the blockchain servers), but change is a-comin'. I’ll end with another one of Jaron’s quotes that resonated with me; I’m paraphrasing this one. 

“There are physical limits, e.g. what we do to the planet. But there are no cultural limits. Humanity can grow and deepen forever.”