The World Isn't Ready For Web3 Yet
The popularity of another iteration to the internet has skyrocketed in tandem with the great bull run of 2021. Many advocate for it because of its potential to displace big tech companies and their overcentralized agenda out of the internet, tokenize our world, reset the playing field for everyone and introduce the Blockchain to enable transparency and privacy, in a non-oxymoronic way. But is the world ready take on Web3?
To this day, Web3 does not have any concrete definition behind it. Therefore, we'll have to go by the most prominent features, aforementioned, its proponents posit is going to form the crust of the next generation of the Internet. One of those features is the introduction of the blockchain, and how the permanence of which, when pitted against the monoliths of today, is going to prevail in terms of transparency, privacy, immutability, and so on.
To that effect, there exists fragments of Web3 that lay across the internet as of this moment that comes to manifest that feature. Chief amongst them that satisfies the idealistic image of Web3 is Hive and its feeless, scalable, multi-layer solution, decentralized nature. Not every manifestation of Web3 is as we envisions it, though, and not every user is going to put thought into whether the this DeFi project or this DeX is going to be as trustworthy. Even before Web3 has materialized, it already harbors a bad image to the public, ranging from alleged 'hacks', scams to Ponzi schemes built on Layer 1, what with the recent fiasco with custodial services halting their withdrawals.
Many people liken the adoption of Cryptocurrencies (and by extension, Web3) to that of the internet. But the public image of both, which plays into the adoption equation strongly, is not even on the same chapter: the rise of the internet was met by the same old, indifferent hand-wave reaction of "it's just a fad," whilst Cryptocurrencies have the negative connotations of both environmental harm, and the fact that its oft likened to being a minefield of scams and ponzis. Until that image is repaired and made square, you are at best going to get a hesitant, tenuous adoption by the public, and a ton of people on the other side of the fence giving you glares.
However, I think that cryptocurrencies are no longer to be confined to the geeks, huddled in its own niche, the anti-mainstream, away from public view. But If it is to gain any traction in the eyes of the people Bitcoin was meant to liberate, solutions to threats to the user's funds are to be addressed, and the environmental debacle
What could solve a herculean problem, on the widest scale possible, such as this? If we are coming from the yield angle, then HIVE had already solved this problem with %20 HBD savings account right in your wallet, making redundant the CeX segment. If we are coming from the environmental angle, HIVE's D-PoS has the environment covered. There is basically no excuse hindering adoption for HIVE.
The displacement of Big Tech, although proponents of Web3 posit it as the biggest advantage against the monolithic web, is going to be the biggest resistance to overcome for smooth adoption. @taskmaster4450, in his Ownership Mindset article, explains it elegantly.
Big Tech's algorithms, centralization and patterns of revenue are deeply rooted in the modern-day digital square field of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, SnapChat, and many more in the fold. When Web3 is finally knocking on the door, the displacement of that digital square is going to herald a major shift in the mindset of the population from one that was brainwashed as the product of these social media, to a mindset that favors a milder form of greed: Ownership.
Ownership of your data, your coins, your tokens, your postings, your presence, your everything that is digital. Web3 truly snatches it back to you. But the biggest question is: are the people ready to be handed the keys to? The Product Mindset is monolithic, and as all things monolithic, they are extremely slow and resistant to change. But when it finally comes to pass, what's going to displace Big Tech?
HIVE is the most credible proof-of-concept of separated but focused spaces and platforms, essentially decentralized, balkanized social media. LeoFinance revolves entirely around the financial aspect of our lives, Proof-of-Brain is a general-utility space, unfocused, and so on.
Conclusion
HIVE, and the likes of HIVE, is going to displace Big Tech. But until that happens, a major transitional period between the monolithic Web and Web3 has to take place. A major shift in mindset towards ownership, a massive ripple through Big tech and the traditional financial system, and a restructuring of how we interact within the internet, I believe, is what that transition is going to entail a smooth one into Web3.
Thanks for reading!
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
