Welcome to wenser’s special column in web3. Welcome to Wenser's Web3 column.
Long time no see, friends. I have been quietly building some things during this time, so the output has inevitably lagged behind. However, I still occasionally chat on Twitter, feel free to follow — @wenser2010～
Without further ado, the topic I want to discuss today is — How is Web3 possible?
TL;DR:
1. The current state of Web3 — The prisoner’s dilemma between Web2 and Web3 determines that Web3 is destined to be a "game for the few" at this stage.
2. The ambition of Web3 — To guide 100 million, 1 billion, 10 billion, and other different scales of people into Web3 for investment, socializing, work, gaming, and life.
3. The future of Web3 — Hardware devices, software applications, intermediary services, fighting with Web2 to survive, fighting alongside AI, and seeking peace through the Metaverse.
If you find this brief version too vague and somewhat difficult to understand, let’s continue reading.
1. The Current State of Web3: The Dilemma of the Prisoner’s Dilemma#
As the old saying goes: "To wear the crown, one must bear its weight." If the narrative of Web3 truly wants to grow into "civilization-level innovation," it must at least meet the following prerequisites:
- Large-scale adoption of new technologies; 2) Significant improvement in production efficiency;
- Extensive transformation of production relations; 4) Great liberation of thought.
Now, in the 14th year since the emergence of Bitcoin, in 2023, the combined power of the Crypto field and multiple subfields, Web3, which many boast as "one of the inevitable processes of human civilization," has only met the first condition — in other words, although Web3 is increasingly regarded as a standard by more and more people, only blockchain technology has achieved (to a certain extent) large-scale adoption. Changes in production efficiency, production relations, and the power of thought, in my opinion, are still struggling to move from 0 to 1. Why?
Because the currently dominant public chain ecology, which is overwhelmingly strong, determines that production efficiency cannot be greatly improved in the short term; the multiple relationships between buyers and sellers, bulls and bears, large miners, investors and speculators, consumers, etc., have not transformed and developed like the past relationships between capitalists and labor, or tech giants and data miners. As for the power of thought, in a time when countless people enter this field solely to strike gold, wanting to get rich quickly, and even disdain the Bitcoin white paper and Ethereum white paper, which are not only technical documents but also crystallizations of social thought, it is even more difficult to talk about liberation or great liberation.
After the ICO boom, DeFi summer, Metaverse hype, NFT frenzy, the surge of DAO organizations, and social finance resembling a dead zone, it is needless to say that Web3 has indeed entered a dead end, a vicious cycle of "prisoner's dilemma" — because there are not that many people, many Web3 projects and applications remain in a "stock involution, zero-sum game" gambler state, only able to harvest the existing "leeks" in the market; and such a gambler + scythe mentality naturally creates an external environment of short-sightedness and a dark forest, with frequent security incidents (whether institutional, project, or individual), rug pulls & soft rugs often absconding with funds and getting away with it, hot news becoming attention-harvesting machines, and excessive leverage misappropriating funds ultimately leading to explosions. Such events happen every year, every month, every day, every hour, and every minute, with the only difference being the amounts involved, the scope of impact, and geographical locations.
The consequences of this naturally deepen the "information gap" — project parties want to create good agreements, products, and projects, but the industry cycle is turbulent; investors (holders of various capital) are powerless to filter and find consistently reliable teams, projects, and communities, and can only sit and wait, allowing themselves to be slaughtered, bearing the high-value risks of tangible and intangible information gaps, while both sides are trapped in the prisoner’s dilemma of "Should we come clean first?"
Under such immense uncertainty, despite the "hundreds of coins emerging," the so-called "mainstream coins" that can enter the so-called "mainstream" and be truly valued are surprisingly few. Everyone can only actively embrace or passively accept countless "shanzhai coins" with "high risk and varying returns," boasting about their good judgment when they profit, having chosen the "godly plate, godly mine, godly project," and when they lose, they can only "blame their bad luck for encountering a mess," attributing it to their luck, not realizing that it is not merely a matter of luck, but more of a "structural issue."
Of course, some may say "opportunities lie within prejudice," "only by utilizing uncertainty can one become rich," "it is always the few harvesting the many," and while this is not incorrect, personal opportunities are for individuals to grasp, but that is not within the scope of our discussion today.
After more than a decade of development in a field, everyone has become accustomed to participants changing like the tides, only to turn back and realize — that we still need to refocus on the threshold of "wallets and accounts" to break the deadlock, attract more people, and allow more people to participate. If this is not a "game for the few," do you think it is possible?
2. The Ambition of Web3#
Alright, if you can see this, it means you still have some expectations for the future of Web3, and its development, according to the laws of historical events, will naturally follow the hump curve of innovation diffusion, and it will also require more and more people to participate.
So the question arises: How do we guide more people into Web3?
If guiding 1 person, 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people, or even 10,000 people can be accomplished with relatively low costs (social relationships, capital airdrops, wealth myths, etc.), then guiding 100 million, 1 billion, or even 10 billion people into Web3 is undoubtedly a complex and systematic project.
It is worth noting that although the "strongest public chain ecology" Ethereum has surpassed 94 million addresses, the actual number of "users" on Ethereum is undoubtedly far less than this number. According to data from OKLink multi-chain browser, as of February 7, 2023, the number of non-zero addresses on the Ethereum chain has exceeded 94 million, reaching 94,014,612, a historical high. After all, creating one or N addresses is not only a matter of minutes but is also one of the essential skills in the Crypto field.
Therefore, if Web3 were a global multinational corporate group, to continuously break through its "market share," the strategic layout should be — both "break through at a single point" and "flourish comprehensively." To achieve this, the fields that the Web3 "group" is involved in cannot be limited to a few tracks but should spread out like a forest in all directions.
The following only represents personal views, which may be entirely wrong or entirely right, and everything is left to time for verification. Friendly exchanges are welcome.
Investment#
Some say that the Fi attribute (financial attribute) is the most grounded, universal, and attractive attribute of Web3, and naturally, Web3, which is rooted in Crypto, cannot escape this. However, today's Web3 investment resembles a blood-sport arena rather than a simple cognitive game stage.
Thus, if we want to motivate more people to join the ranks of Web3 explorers, builders, and participants through investment channels, it undoubtedly presents considerable difficulty.
I personally believe that changes in investment may need to start from the following:
1. Personal threshold aspect: Establish low-interest, value-preserving fund-type products — while lowering the entry threshold, build a relatively stable "bridge" for transfer, and the best practitioners of this task are none other than exchanges.
2. Central power aspect: Seek limited regulation from authoritative governments — establish "limited regulatory zones" similar to special economic zones and pilot areas, moderately connecting with benchmark entities in the Web3 field (platforms, projects, DAO organizations, communities, companies, etc.), seeking a balance between decentralized mechanisms and centralized organizations in a more gradual and slow manner.
3. Operational entity aspect: Standardize industry development models and information disclosure — the opacity of information has long been one of the main criticisms of the Web3 and Crypto industries, and addressing these two aspects can enhance the relative transparency of business entities and operational situations.
Social#
Humans are social animals; the essence of a person is the sum of all social relationships.
As beings that enter into their primary groups from birth, humanity's need for social interaction is ingrained in our genes. Only in this way can humans enter the entire social system through socialized personalities to acquire survival resources and exchange living materials.
In the Web2 era, countless social giants dominated the internet by controlling so-called "traffic entrances," i.e., the source of social interaction. The social relationship network brings not only basic "traffic" but also the added commercial value and data information network based on various demographic profiles, social relationships, and interactive behaviors. The main differences between Web3 social and Web2 social, in my view, should be the following points:
1. Global real-time liquidity and value combinability. Unlike the strong interest-driven and physiological need-driven nature of Web2 social, Web3 social possesses stronger global liquidity and value combinability due to the dynamic real-time changes of the Crypto network and the modular combination of various values. In simple terms, Web3 social also has interest-driven attributes, but after adding the token variable, it thus has more flexible capital conversion possibilities. Many projects and DAOs with considerable valuations actually originate from Web3 social networks (e.g., Seedclub, FWB, etc.). Originating from interest and consensus, thriving on value and transcending geography.
2. Process incentives and result variability. Unlike the unilateral monopoly of user data and information by platforms and companies in Web2 social, and the natural disadvantage of users (accounts) under the "secondary selling" economic model of attention, users' behaviors in Web3 social can and should be incentivized during the production and development of a product, whether through superficial changes in points or direct economic returns from tokens. Moreover, in Web3 social, through NFTs, which serve as keys, business cards, and containers, "result variability" can also be achieved — just like the potential outcomes of the recent Lens protocol; after $lens appeared on the price board of the well-known American exchange Coinbase, many speculated that it would announce a token just like $OP did half a month after its launch. Currently, the floor price of Lens Protocol Profiles on Opensea has reached 100U, and liquidity remains good (1500+ transactions within 7 days, 15+ transactions within an hour).
3. Dual convertibility of virtual assets and real-world interactions. Why do people socialize? Beyond emotional reasons, it is more about establishing social contracts to achieve the exchange of social resources. Blockchain technology and Web3 social are expected to realize the dual conversion of virtual assets (cryptocurrencies) and real-world interactions (real behaviors). Previous social relationships, upon entering the on-chain world and the Metaverse space, may upgrade to tangible circulating currencies with asset attributes. In layman's terms, Interact to earn. Following, liking, commenting — knowing, shaking hands, exchanging opinions, online behaviors and offline actions are mutually reinforcing, and real-world interactions can naturally convert into virtual assets.
Additionally, it is important to emphasize that one of the reasons existing social finance products face many bottlenecks may be due to the "purity preference of social behaviors." Relatively few people are willing to socialize with others purely for "Fi," as this reduces "themselves" to a mere object like a "commodity," even if this behavior brings economic returns in both directions. Therefore, whether based on this psychological existence or the limitations of human time, energy, and psychological endurance, I personally believe that future Web3 social should not pursue "breadth" (such as the number of people, range, or data) unilaterally, but rather will reward deeper social interactions (regardless of interaction time, frequency, emotional depth, understanding level, etc.).
Finally, the protocols and application directions I am currently looking forward to include: beauty economy, creator economy, historical collection economy, etc. I hope there will be more outstanding products to experience in the future.
Work#
When it comes to work, many people, like me, think of WorkFi = work to earn.
However, the definition of work is not limited to "physical or mental labor for periodic returns in a company or organization." In other words, I believe the definition of work in Web3 is closer to the concept of "labor" — because many things cannot be simply categorized as "manual labor" or "mental labor."
Without delving into overly complex concepts, "emotional labor" and "digital labor" are objectively existing and worthy of exploration directions within the Web3 work field. Taking the popular Gamefi game StepN from last year as an example, the behavior of Move2Earn is essentially a form of "digital labor"; the relationships among countless influencers, KOLs, and their followers, fans, etc., in this industry are also a very special form of "emotional labor."
And labor should receive corresponding direct or indirect economic returns. The shared interest relationship between organizations and individuals should be the premise and foundation for guiding more people into Web3 work.
Thus, Web3 work, or the labor aspect of Web3, may guide more people to join through the following types of professions:
1. Broadly defined testers. Regardless of the field, track, or type of project, various "testers" are needed — testing operational environments, testing product experiences, testing economic models, testing activity cycles, etc. Currently, most of these roles are played by so-called "hairy party" or "interaction farming, airdrop hunting armies," but as Web3 gradually develops, the industrial differentiation under subfields will naturally require more, more professional, and more career-oriented roles. Perhaps in the near future, we will enter an era of "everyone catching bugs."
2. Performers in special contexts. Just like the "suicide performer" in the sci-fi series "Black Mirror," who was assimilated by the shackles after rebelling against labor constraints, Web3 situational performances will also be a unique "profession" — whether it is a Metaverse adventure, participating in Gamefi from a first-person perspective, or the thrilling "contract roulette"? The different experiences brought by performance behaviors will become the "consumption purpose" for countless "audiences." It is even possible that one "Truman Show" after another may emerge.
3. Architects in the information network. Just as there are "information brokers" and "information nodes" in many places, the demand for information networks in Web3 has always existed. In simple terms, everyone, every project, and every entity needs interaction in communication, cooperation, competition, etc., and building various large and small nodes in the Web3 information network will be a rigid demand — from headhunting to strategic cooperation.
Games#
When it comes to Web3 games, most people still think of Gamefi-type games, but I believe that Web3 games are clearly not just a simple combination of game + fi, or that broadly defined Web3 games actually encompass far more than just the concept of Gamefi.
The founder of German classical philosophy, Kant, believed that "games are life activities with intrinsic purposes and thus are free." He wrote in "Critique of Judgment": "Labor is a forced activity, while play is a free activity that stands in opposition to labor." The founder of psychoanalysis, Freud (Austria, 1856-1939), believed that games are "virtual activities through which people satisfy their own desires through imagination," and the opposite of games is not real work, but reality.
John Huizinga and Friedrich Schiller in "Homo Ludens" and "Playing Games" defined "games" as "all activities that are purely for entertainment purposes without clear intent." This definition starts from purpose (utility), and from this perspective, any activity that brings joy and allows people to actively participate belongs to the category of games, such as dancing, playing the piano, building snowmen, playing with toys, etc.
German Wolfgang Kramer proposed that rule-based games can be summarized as: activities constructed by props and rules, actively participated in by people, with clear goals, containing competition and rich variations, and aimed at entertainment. It is interconnected yet independent of the real world, reflecting shared experiences among people and embodying the spirit of equality and freedom.
— The above content is quoted from "Games Change the World"
For example, the establishment, development, expansion, decline, and death of DAO organizations can also be called "Web3 games," right? After all, activities involving governance, production, experience, and order also have positive feedback and voluntary choices, and can generate a sense of achievement, pleasure, or competence, even achieving specific goals, which aligns with some scholars' definitions of games.
Thus, from the perspective of infinite games, Web3 is an infinite game of creating rules, defining boundaries, breaking boundaries, and dancing with order, and can even be considered a large-scale social experiment. Therefore, the evolution of games to attract more people into Web3 may start from the following aspects:
1. Expansion of the gaming field. For example, expanding the understanding of game definitions and scopes, purchasing NFTs, acquiring cryptocurrencies, joining certain DAOs, using certain blockchain products, etc., can all be seen as part of Web3 games. As the Web3 ecosystem becomes increasingly rich, the types of "Web3 games" will naturally increase, and even DAO organizations and NFT projects will enter "game forms," gaining alternative forms of positive feedback, and even entering the "DAO wars" and "NFT dungeons" of the Web3 "netizen era."
2. Increase in game production. Many people believe that the number of Web3 game players is too small to support the operation of the existing game system, and some even sarcastically say that "there are more game developers than game players" in some Gamefi projects with almost zero daily active users. However, another promising direction is the Web3 transformation of game editors like Roblox and Unity, where people treat "game production" as a game itself. To put it fancifully, it can be seen as "meta-game design," allowing participants to earn $GAME tokens as rewards (similar to game design competitions and game hackathons). This could indeed lead to an increase in game production, but at the same time, the increase in the supply side of game content will also drive the growth of the consumption side of game content to varying degrees, thereby guiding more people into the Web3 space through "game production" and corresponding "N many games." The number of game developers being greater than game players is not the problem; the issue lies in whether the corresponding roles and content can continue to grow and accumulate power for exponential growth one day.
3. Tokenization of games. I believe this is one of the directions that many Web3 game developers must explore now and in the future, and it is also one of the directions that NFT projects are advancing. Long ago, I mentioned that many people touted "the biggest advantage of Web3 games/Gamefi games is that you can control your own assets and data," but the reality is that the NFTs and game data in the globally renowned Gamefi game Axie Infinity do not actually belong to the players who invest their time and energy into it. These NFTs and data cannot be easily exchanged for fiat currency (don’t forget the liquidity issues of NFTs), nor can they be exchanged for items or NFTs from other Gamefi games. Once they leave the Axie Infinity platform, the value of these assets can be said to be nearly zero. How can we talk about "assets belonging to users, data belonging to users"? One fundamental reason for this inability is that the Axie Infinity ecosystem cannot integrate with other Gamefi ecosystems (like StepN), due to both the differences in game forms and economic ecosystems, as well as the inability to convert underlying protocols and item NFTs.
To put it in a real-world analogy, if the money I store in my Starbucks membership card cannot be withdrawn to buy coffee at Luckin, how can I say that this money and the coffee I have bought are my own? (Of course, the real situation is more complex.) The tokenization of games is expected to become one of the solutions to this awkward problem after the Solv Protocol team develops EIP-3525 "semi-homogeneous (homogenized)" tokens.
In simple terms, as long as you are playing a certain (mature) Web3 game belonging to a specific ecosystem/platform/company/organization, you can exchange the tokens or NFTs earned in the game for items or NFTs from other games at different exchange rates, or for points at a real-world store, to be used for consumption or purchasing certain physical items (initially, it could be game peripherals, character figures, character blind boxes, etc., gradually expanding the categories and ranges as well as different price points of goods).
Of course, this also depends on whether the "positive externalities" and "anti-fragility" of this ecosystem are strong enough, whether the exchange, circulation, and consumption speed of the tokens and points are healthy enough, and most importantly, whether there are people or organizations actively building this ecosystem.
Life#
Many people may wonder: the different aspects mentioned earlier are all part of life, and many people's lives are composed of investment, socializing, work, and games. Why should life be singled out for discussion again?
Because if we want more people to recognize the necessity and importance of entering Web3, the above parts are simply not enough, and this life is not the same as that life — the life aspect mentioned here refers more to the essential "elements" in a person's life — such as identity, clothing, food, housing, transportation, and the development needs, enjoyment needs, and even self-actualization needs after meeting survival needs. It is difficult to clearly delineate specific fields, so it is placed at the end.
1. DID aspect: In life, everyone has different "identities" and corresponding "roles," such as identities in social relationships, identities in collective organizations, and identities in professional occupations. Distinct from these identities, a system that can better quantify value and exercise personal sovereignty is naturally the DID (Decentralized Identity) in Web3. Each of us needs a cross-chain, comprehensive, low-cost, sufficiently recognizable DID that can serve as a data storage container, can consolidate social relationships, and more. Moreover, this DID should have a broad integration, especially with Web2 applications, such as social media, short video platforms, e-commerce platforms, etc. In this regard, I personally have high hopes for the .bit DID identity system built on the POW logic of the Nervos public chain (reportedly backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent). Imagine: in the future, everyone’s WeChat ID (wxid) could be your DID, allowing login to multiple applications. The role that enables this function is .bit, which has a Sub-DID sub-account system as a real DID. Of course, the premise is that the DID can truly play the multiple roles mentioned earlier and meet the identity management requirements of central organizations (you know what I mean). Achieving this will also help protect personal identity information and provide multiple security guarantees for related assets.
2. Clothing, food, housing, and transportation aspect: The basic components of daily life are nothing more than these four things. If we want to increase people's involvement in Web3 in these areas, we must meet the demands from these aspects. The prerequisite for all this lies in the legalization and compliance of cryptocurrency payments, which requires gradual promotion by central institutions and also benefits from the participation of exchanges, wallet applications, and more brand merchants. Moreover, it is crucial that brands entering the Web3 space are not merely engaging in PR marketing and money-making schemes, but genuinely want to integrate into this ecosystem, seize opportunities to occupy a position within it, and expand their brand scenarios — allowing more people to see, use, and remember this brand in more places. Unfortunately, so far, we have not seen particularly good brand case studies. Even strong brands like Starbucks, Tiffany, Adidas, and Nike (which acquired RTFKT) have not found larger brand application scenarios.
3. Self-actualization aspect. Compared to other industries, Web3 does not place as much emphasis on "qualifications, experience, background, wealth, origin, skin color, race," etc. (of course, there are certain circles, preferences, and even "looking down on others" phenomena — their common rhetoric is: "holders have no right to speak or comment; behaviors I haven't seen are not betting; they are all freeloaders in various communities"). Therefore, everyone has the opportunity to find their "self-actualization and ideal" here — just as new media has changed traditional industries (many people from traditional industries have achieved their second growth curve and even dual self-actualization in spirit and material through new media), the spirit of "freedom, equality, innovation, decentralization" in Web3 is also a territory for many people today — here, you can be an artist immersed in creation, a collector focused on curation, a writer dedicated to crafting, a researcher investing in studies, or a programmer happily coding... As long as you want, there is enough space here to accommodate your overflowing imagination and execution.
Finally, I want to share a formula with everyone. The father of communication theory, Schramm, was influenced by scholar George K. Zipf's "principle of least effort," proposing a "probability formula" for choice: Guarantee of reward / Degree of effort = Probability of choice (in other words, the power of choice is inversely proportional to the degree of effort and directly proportional to credibility).
This formula was originally intended as a standard for media selection, meaning that if a medium can meet more audience needs (i.e., guarantee of reward) and has lower usage costs and requires less effort (i.e., degree of effort), then this medium is more likely to be chosen.
In the context of the Web3 field, I personally believe we can propose Web3 Probability Formula = Richness of returns / Cost incurred, meaning that if a Web3 project/application/platform can meet the necessary/important needs of users, provide them with rich returns, and the costs incurred by users are lower, then this entity is more likely to be accepted and used.
If necessary, call upon Web3.
3. The Future of Web3#
With the recent wave of enthusiasm sparked by ChatGPT sweeping the globe, AIGC has become the hottest field and content category today. The fervent reactions of people resemble the ignorant desire exhibited when millions of years ago, they first witnessed lightning igniting a forest fire. Many investors, internet practitioners, content creators, and researchers are about to or have already prepared to worship AIGC as the latest "religious altar," mirroring the frenzy surrounding Web3 a year ago.
The shift in trends is as normal as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, but compared to the countless blind and excessive hype serving commercial marketing purposes and holding extreme attitudes toward AI today, the future of Web3 may be a more worthy question to ponder.
The following content is purely personal speculation and expectations, unrelated to any institution or individual. Friendly exchanges are welcome.
Hardware Devices#
The future of Web3 necessitates the updating and iteration of hardware devices, even exponential evolution.
Currently, XR (AR/VR/MR) is one of the indispensable components of Web3. The construction, development, expansion, and endless boundary extension of the Metaverse space, even the data reproduction and deduction traversing past and future, all rely on more powerful computing devices and supporting hardware (and of course, the essential high-speed network).
At present, there are three tech giants with corresponding layouts in this area: Meta (formerly Facebook); ByteDance; Apple. In the future of Web3, it is not excluded that some small companies may also have the potential for a leapfrog development.
As for the applications of Web3, the following possibilities exist:
1. Payment tools — Whether smartwatches, smart glasses, or even iris recognition and genetic matching, the intelligence, lightweight, and even seamlessness of Web3 payment tools are major trends;
2. Storage tools — Data storage has always been a fundamental component of the internet, and the security and scalability of data storage are essential needs for countless individuals. Whether for organizations or individuals, the ability to store data quickly, efficiently, and economically is a continuous effort for Web3 hardware devices;
3. Interaction tools — As a necessary component of Web3, the generation and optimization of interaction tools are also essential, such as holographic gloves, control handles, digital skins, and sensory helmets.
I have always held high expectations for the open consciousness current-linked storage Metaverse (simply understood as the world of Herta in "Upload" and Uploaded Intelligence in "The Pantheon"), and I do not believe that the realization and development of the Metaverse will limit humanity's steps toward the stars and the sea — just as the curvature drive engine and the concealment of Earth's cosmic coordinates in "The Three-Body Problem" can be achieved simultaneously, the Metaverse can not only create a digital divine kingdom but also promote the evolution and deduction of cosmology and physics.
Software Applications#
For the software applications in the future of Web3, I personally (very subjectively) believe that "scalability" will be one of the important elements — simply put, future Web3 applications will no longer be defined by individual types (like exe, apk formats), but will instead be able to expand like current compressed packages (like zip, rar formats) into software toolkits that adapt to various hardware.
This is not only due to the evolution of future hardware devices but also because scalable applications can meet the diverse needs of various populations — a software application can be a purely entertaining content viewing platform, an immersive garden stage, or a changing, illusory digital space.
Imagine being able to watch others in GTA-6's thrilling world, entering it to experience the excitement from a first-person perspective, and even creating things and tools that can exist in the real physical world, experiencing the feeling of imagination becoming reality. You could earn token rewards by recording and outputting your videos, audio, and other content, or even emulate game developers by selling your created DLC (Downloadable Content).
Large games are open worlds, and various games and worlds within those games will serve as countless "digital metaverses," allowing people to immerse themselves in them, just like in "Free Guy."
Moreover, the classification boundaries of software applications in the future of Web3 may also become more blurred, and even "application nesting" may become the norm — that is, building a medium-sized application, small application, or even a micro-application based on someone else's large application, such as creating a "one-click house" application for a game, which can be thrown onto an empty space in the Metaverse.
And the most important thing is that future Web3 applications will no longer be a series of information islands; users (I personally prefer the term participants or builders) will truly decide their data and information. All content will be like a USB drive, plug-and-play, ready to go and unplug. At the same time, most applications will be open-source software. If users open limited-time, limited-permission access, they can record and analyze users' overall needs and more comprehensive behavioral trajectories, thus better helping users meet their online and offline, real and virtual multiple needs.
Intermediary Services#
Another important aspect of the future of Web3 is the intermediary services beyond hardware devices and software applications.
Although many people in the Web3 world believe in the principle of "Code is Law," and many define one of Web3's important characteristics as "the economy without intermediaries," I personally still believe that the future of Web3 will still face the objective existence of intermediary services.
In simple terms, intermediary services are meant to better connect software and hardware, on one hand, improving the efficiency of individual and organizational behaviors, and on the other hand, enhancing the "flywheel effect" formed between software and hardware, better iterating and optimizing both.
This can perhaps be gradually achieved through the following three points —
1) Fighting alongside AI
Currently, AI is an existence that can greatly liberate human productivity and thought, so the power of Web3 must fight alongside AI. Moreover, AI executes the spirit of decentralization, equality, freedom, innovation, and inclusiveness in Web3 far more thoroughly than humans can.
AI + Web3 = computing power + content + intelligence + combinability + process incentive mechanisms. As AI continues to evolve and learn language models, its service content will expand infinitely.
2) Fighting with Web2 to survive
Although Web3 (in China) has not yet entered the mainstream view and caused a large-scale sensation (even less than the recent popularity of ChatGPT), Web3, as the next generation of internet infrastructure, will inevitably bring irreversible replacement and transcendence to the seemingly rock-solid Web2 system.
Therefore, the attitude towards Web2 should be "fighting to survive" — on one hand, filling the gaps in the Web2 field, such as instant transfers, traceable tickets, etc.; on the other hand, launching dimensional attacks on famous brands and influencers in Web2. While capturing territory, we must accelerate the pace to replace Web2 and exert increasingly important influence and broader reach; at the same time, we must maintain the upper hand in public opinion to gain more attention and increasingly broad space for the development of Web3.
3) Seeking peace with the Metaverse through battle
As for the Metaverse, the power of Web3 needs to seek peace through battle — incorporating the concept and narrative of the Metaverse into its own narrative and ecosystem, leading more people to explore either closed or open Metaverse platforms. Using NFTs as important chips to seek support and endorsement from the Metaverse.
What if Web3 is just a dream?#
Finally, I would like to conclude with a hypothetical question I have pondered for a long time: If Web3 is just a hyped, exaggerated, and mythologized dream, what then?
Will the persistence once held, the beliefs once upheld, and the sacrifices once made be regrettable? Will there be remorse? Will it be a pity? Will it feel like a waste? Will it feel like being fooled?
I think, to some extent, there will be some feelings like that, but even so, I believe many people will still be like me: enjoying it, participating in it, finding joy in it, building within it, and feeling proud of having participated, constructed, deconstructed, and given up, generating various emotions. Whether Web3 is a fleeting dream or a grand social experiment, the greatest gain has already been achieved on this journey — that is, countless novel experiences, exciting collisions, enlightening exchanges, and countless lovely friends and visitors.
Web3 rewards the process; the arrival of results is merely a natural outcome.
Remember, this is an infinite game that dances with rules, order, and boundaries.
Wishing you all the best in 2023, may everyone find their own "Ithaca."
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