What are we supposed to do about Web3?

 July 15, 2022

So what are we supposed to make of Web3?

Unfortunately, Web3 might be pretty short. The best analysis of the blockchain and NFT-powered paradigm of Web3 that I've read is by the inventor of the Signal encrypted messaging app. He took a look at NFTs and pointed out that when you make an NFT, you're not selling to people, and they are not buying, what anyone is really realizing that they're buying. And he proved it by making an NFT that was set up this way:

An NFT's "token" is not a picture or some kind of artwork, actually. While the blockchain is theoretically secure, the NFT art in one of those tokens is hosted on an entirely separate server, not the NFT blockchain segment itself. The author proved this by making an NFT - a salable good – that would not consistently display the same image to anyone looking at it in their wallet. This proved that an NFT set up that way is in the very least not secure unless the source material is secure. But it also showed something deeper, which is this:

What you are really buying with an NFT is not the artwork but actually the "box" that the artwork is contained in: and the way that the NFT is set up does not let you interact with the contents of the box. That means that the seller can change or even remove the art from the "box" even if the buyer has paid for it. And the NFT marketplace, by the way, can remove a whole type of coin from the platform. Far from "decentralized".

But what could this be? If you could do common sense things with a block on a block chain, it could be like a secure storage box for data: like a post office box. This could be easily provided as a public good. If you can put a link "in" a block chain to make NFTs, you should be able to put data in, take it out, and edit that data in the "box". I don't pretend to be a computer programmer but this seems like common sense. Does common sense apply to computer programming and software design? If it doesn't, Web3 is going to be really short. But to deliver on this common sense, necessary idea, it's going to have to require all of us to stop trying to "brute force" an approximation of creativity by establishing artificial limits on what we do, or are willing to do, or are capable of doing.